back to my own time when I was just husband-high, though that wasn’t so little, Lysander John being a scant six foot three—­and our wedding tour to the Centennial and the trip to Niagara Falls—­just soaking in old memories that bless and bind that this lady singer was calling up—­well, you could have had anything from me right then when she kissed that cross a second time, just pouring her torn heart out.  ‘Worth every cent of that fifty,’ I says.

“Then everybody was standing up and moving out—­wiping their eyes a lot of ’em was—­so I push on ahead quick, aiming to be more wily than ever and leave my couple alone.  They don’t miss me, either.  When I look back, darned if they ain’t kind of shaking hands right there in the hall.  ‘Quick work!’ I says.  ‘You got to hand it to that song.’  Even then I noticed Nettie was looking back to where Wilbur was tripping down from the platform, and Chester had his eyes glazed over on this manicure party.  Still, they was gripping each other’s hands right there before folks, and I think they’re just a bit embarrassed.  My old heart went right on echoing that song as I pushed forward—­not looking back again, I was that certain.

“And to show you the mushy state I was in, here is old Safety First himself leering at me down by the door, with a clean shave and his other clothes on, and he says all about how it was a grand evening’s musical entertainment and how much will the Belgians get in cold cash, anyway, and how about them hundred and fifty head of bull calves that he was willing to take off my hands, and me, all mushed up by that song as I am telling you, saying to him in a hearty manner, ’They’re yours, Dave!  Take ’em at your own price, old friend.’  Honest, I said it just that way, so you can see.  ’Oh, I’ll be stuck on ’em at fifty a head,’ says Dave, ‘but I knew you’d listen to reason, we being such old neighbours.’  ‘I ain’t heard reason since that last song,’ I says.  I’m listening to my heart, and it’s a grand pity yours never learned to talk.’  ’Fifty a head,’ says the old robber.

“So, thus throwing away at least fifteen hundred dollars like it was a mere bagatelle or something, I walk out into the romantic night and beat it for home, wanting to be in before my happy couple reached there, so they’d feel free to linger over their parting.  My, but I did feel responsible and dangerous, directing human destinies so brashly the way I had.”

There was a pause, eloquent with unworded emotions.

Then “Human destinies, hell!” the lady at length intoned.

Hereupon I amazingly saw that she believed her tale to be done.  I permitted the silence to go a minute, perhaps, while she fingered the cigarette paper and loose tobacco.

“And of course, then,” I hinted, as the twin jets of smoke were rather viciously expelled.