young men because every young lady you
meet looks better to you than the last until you meet the next an' so
you go on to another until you're so old that no one would marry you at
all unless you had lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky heart."

"An old man without any sense, lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky
heart can always get a young lady to marry him," said Felix, "though
rheumatics, gout, an' a wooden leg are just as good in such a case."

"Every bit," said Standish, "but there's nothin' like a weak
constitution, a cold climate, an' a tendency to pneumonia."

"Old men are quare," said Felix.

"They are," said Standish, "an' if they were all only half as wise as
they think they are then they'd be only young fools in the world. I
don't wonder a bit at the suffragettes. An' a time will come when we
won't know men from women unless some one tells us so."

"Wisha, 'tis my belief that there will be a great reaction some day,
because women will never be able to stand the strain of doin' what
they please without encountering opposition. When a man falls in love
he falls into trouble likewise, an' when a woman isn't in trouble you
may be sure that there's something wrong with her."

"Well," said Standish, "I think we will leave the women where the devil
left St. Peter--"

"Where was that?" asked Felix.

"Alone," answered Standish.

"That would be all very fine if they stayed there," said Felix.

"Now," said Standish, "as I was talking of me travels in foreign
parts, I want to tell you about the morning I walked along the beach
at Ballysantamalo, an' a warm morning it was too. So I ses to meself,
'Standish McNeill,' ses I, 'what kind of a fool of a man are you? Why
don't you take a swim for yourself?' So I did take a swim, an' I swam
to the rocks where the seals goes to get their photograph's taken an'
while I was havin' a rest for meself I noticed a grasshopper sittin' a
short distance away an' 'pon me word, but he was the most sorrowful
lookin' grasshopper I ever saw before or since. Then all of a sudden a
monster whale comes up from the sea and lies down beside him an' ses:
'Well,' ses he, 'is that you? Who'd ever think of finding you here.
Why, there's nothing strange under the sun but the ways of woman.'

"''Tis me that's here, then,' said the grasshopper. 'Me grandmother died
last night an' she wasn't insured either.'

"'The practice of negligence is the curse of mankind and the root of
sorrow,