ou had mixed the dates. You had
promised to go, and you hadn't gone or notified the girl that you
wouldn't go. Your apologetic telegram she had torn into halves and
returned the following morning, together with a curt note to the effect
that she could not value the friendship of a man who made and broke a
promise so easily. It was all over. It was a dashed hard world. How the
deuce do you win a girl, anyhow?

Supposing, besides, that you possessed a rich uncle who said that on the
day of your wedding he would make over to you fifty thousand in
Government three per cents? Hard, wasn't it? Suppose that you were
earning about two thousand a year, and that the struggle to keep up
smart appearances was a keen one. Wouldn't you have been eager to marry,
especially the girl you loved? A man can not buy flowers twice a week,
dine before and take supper after the theater twice a week, belong (and
pay dues and house-accounts) to a country club, a town club and keep
respectable bachelor apartments on two thousand ... and save anything.
And suppose the girl was independently rich? Heigh-ho!

I find that a man needs more money in love than he does in debt. This is
not to say that I was ever very hard pressed; but I hated to pay ten
dollars "on account" when the total was only twenty. You understand me,
don't you? If you don't, somebody who reads this will. Of course, the
girl knew nothing about these things. A young man always falls into the
fault of magnifying his earning capacity to the girl he loves. You see,
I hadn't told her yet that I loved her, though I was studying up
somebody on Moral and Physical Courage for that purpose.

And now it was all over!

I did not care so much about my uncle's gold-bonds, but I did think a
powerful lot of the girl. Why, when I recall the annoyances I've put up
with from that kid brother of hers!... Pshaw, what's the use?

His mother called him "Toddy-One-Boy," in memory of a book she had read
long years ago. He was six years old, and I never think of him without
that jingle coming to mind:

"Little Willie choked his sister,
She was dead before they missed her.
Willie's always up to tricks.
Ain't he cute, he's only six!"

He had the face of a Bouguereau cherub, and mild blue eyes such as we
are told inhabit the countenances of angels. He was the most
innocent-looking chap you ever set eyes on. His mother called him an
angel; I should hate to tell you what the neighbors called him