t drifted again.

CHAPTER XVII.

"EH, BUT SHE'S WINSOME."

"Eh, but she's winsome!"

Grant Harlson entered my room one evening with this irrelevant
exclamation.

I have remained unmarried, and have learned how to live, as a man may,
after a fashion, who has no aid from that sex which alone knows how to
make a home.

Harlson, at this time, had apartments very near me, and we invaded each
other's rooms at will, and were a mutual comfort to each other, and a
help--at least I know that he was all this to me. I have never yet
seen a man so strong and self-reliant or secretive--save some few who
were misers or recluses, and not of the real world--who, if there were
no woman for him, would not tell things to some one man. We two knew
each other, and counted on each other, and while I could not do as much
for him as he for me, I could try as hard. He knew that.

"Eh, but she's winsome!"

He went to the mantel, took a cigar, and lit it, and turned to me
indignantly:

"You smoke-producing dolt, why are you silent? Didn't you hear my
earnest comment? Where is the trace of good behavior you once owned?"

"Who's winsome?"

"She, I tell you! She--the girl I met to-night. And you sit there and
inhale the fumes of a weed, and are no more stirred by my announcement
than the belching chimney of an exposition by the fair display around
it!"

"You big, driveling idiot, how can I know what you are talking about?
You come in with an obscure outburst of enthusiasm over something,--a
woman, I infer,--and because the particular tone, and direction, and
mood of your insanity is not recognized within a moment, you descend to
personalities. If your distemper has left you reason enough for the
comprehension of words, sit down and tell me about it. Who's winsome?
What's winsome? And have you been to a banquet?"

"There is a degree of reason in what you say--that is, from the point
of a clod. I'll tell you. I've met a woman."

"I dare say. There are a number in town, I understand."

"Spoken in the vein of your dullness. A person not sodden with
nicotine and dreams would have recognized the fact that I had met a
Woman, one deserving a large W whenever her name is spelled, a woman of
the sort to make one think that all poems are not trickery, and all
romances not romance."

"What's her name?"

"Do you suppose I'll tell you, you scheming wife-hunter! If I do,
you'll get an introduction somehow, and then you'l