"Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it.

"You'll see."

"No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!"

Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow.

"I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in
the air.

"No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him
about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be
explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was
dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that,
consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting.

"Yes!" declared Seffy again.

"Bring forth the stovepipe,
The stovepipe, the stovepipe--"

chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus.

"And my butterfly necktie with--"

"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father.

They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer,
was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew
who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it
were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the
difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near,
and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond
and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage.

"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to _do_?"

"Do?"

Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's
the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it.
"Oh, of _course_! Hah? But what _yit_?"

I regret to say that Seffy did not understand.

"Seffy," he said impressively, "you haf' tol' me what you goin' to wear.
It ain't much. The weather's yit pooty col' nights. But I ken stand it
if you ken--God knows about Sally! Now, what you goin' to _do_--that's
the conuntrum I ast you!"

Still it was not clear to Seffy.

"Why--what I'm a-going to do, hah? Why--whatever occurs."

"Gosh-a'mighty! And nefer say a word or do a sing to help the
occurrences along? Goshens! What a setting-up! Why--say--Seffy, what you
set up _for_?"

Seffy did not exactly know. He had never hoped to practise the thing--in
that sublimely militant phase.

"What do _you_ think?"

"Well, Sef--plow straight to her heart. I wisht I had your chance. I'd
show you a other-guess kind a setting-up--yassir! Make your mouth warter
and your head swim, begoshens! Why, that Sall