n you prove that inanimate
objects DO NOT. See?"

I was thunderstruck with the force of his logic.

"Of course," he continued, "there are degrees of intelligence, and that
makes it difficult. For instance, a mahogany table would not talk like
a rush-bottomed kitchen chair." He stopped suddenly, listened, and
replied, "I really couldn't say."

"I didn't speak," I said.

"I know YOU didn't. But your chair asked me 'how long that fool was
going to stay.' I replied as you heard. Pray don't move--I intend to
change that chair for one more accustomed to polite society. To
continue: I perfected myself in the language, and it was awfully jolly
at first. Whenever I went by train, I heard not only all the engines
said, but what every blessed carriage thought, that joined in the
conversation. If you chaps only knew what rot those whistles can get
off! And as for the brakes, they can beat any mule driver in cursing.
Then, after a time, it got rather monotonous, and I took a short sea
trip for my health. But, by Jove, every blessed inch of the whole
ship--from the screw to the bowsprit--had something to say, and the bad
language used by the garboard strake when the ship rolled was something
too awful! You don't happen to know what the garboard strake is, do
you?"

"No," I replied.

"No more do I. That's the dreadful thing about it. You've got to
listen to chaps that you don't know. Why, coming home on my bicycle
the other day there was an awful row between some infernal 'sprocket'
and the 'ball bearings' of the machine, and I never knew before there
were such things in the whole concern."

I thought I had got at his secret, and said carelessly: "Then I suppose
this was the reason why you broke off your engagement with Miss
Millikens?"

"Not at all," he said coolly. "Nothing to do with it. That is quite
another affair. It's a very queer story; would you like to hear it?"

"By all means." I took out my notebook.

"You remember that night of the Amateur Theatricals, got up by the
White Hussars, when the lights suddenly went out all over the house?"

"Yes," I replied, "I heard about it."

"Well, I had gone down there that evening with the determination of
proposing to Mary Millikens the first chance that offered. She sat
just in front of me, her sister Jane next, and her mother, smart Widow
Millikens,--who was a bit larky on her own account, you remember,--the
next on the bench. When the lights went