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