you've had lately, only worse. New
dinner waistcoats are becoming a habit with you."

"They say one always pays for the excesses of one's youth; mercifully
that isn't true about one's clothes. My mother is thinking of getting
married."

"Again!"

"It's the first time."

"Of course, you ought to know. I was under the impression that she'd
been married once or twice at least."

"Three times, to be mathematically exact. I meant that it was the
first time she'd thought about getting married; the other times she did
it without thinking. As a matter of fact, it's really I who am doing
the thinking for her in this case. You see, it's quite two years since
her last husband died."

"You evidently think that brevity is the soul of widowhood."

"Well, it struck me that she was getting moped, and beginning to settle
down, which wouldn't suit her a bit. The first symptom that I noticed
was when she began to complain that we were living beyond our income.
All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who
aren't respectable live beyond other peoples. A few gifted individuals
manage to do both."

"It's hardly so much a gift as an industry."

"The crisis came," returned Clovis, "when she suddenly started the
theory that late hours were bad for one, and wanted me to be in by one
o'clock every night. Imagine that sort of thing for me, who was
eighteen on my last birthday."

"On your last two birthdays, to be mathematically exact."

"Oh, well, that's not my fault. I'm not going to arrive at nineteen as
long as my mother remains at thirty-seven. One must have some regard
for appearances."

"Perhaps your mother would age a little in the process of settling
down."

"That's the last thing she'd think of. Feminine reformations always
start in on the failings of other people. That's why I was so keen on
the husband idea."

"Did you go as far as to select the gentleman, or did you merely throw
out a general idea, and trust to the force of suggestion?"

"If one wants a thing done in a hurry one must see to it oneself. I
found a military Johnny hanging round on a loose end at the club, and
took him home to lunch once or twice. He'd spent most of his life on
the Indian frontier, building roads, and relieving famines and
minimizing earthquakes, and all that sort of thing that one does do on
frontiers. He could talk sense to a peevish cobra in fifteen native
languages, and probably knew what to do i