such--not to mention the pertinent and trenchant question so well
formulated by the little Peterkin--"

"Why don't you marry?"

"Ha!" said Francis Charles.

"Whachamean--'Ha'?"

"I mean what the poet meant when he spoke so feelingly of the

"------eager boys
Who might have tasted girl's love and been stung."

"Didn't say it. Who?"

"Did, too! William Vaughn Moody. So I say 'Ha!' in the deepest and
fullest meaning of the word; and I will so defend it with my life."

"If you were good and married once, you might not be such a fool," said
Sedgwick hopefully.

"Take any form but this"--Mr. Boland inflated his chest and held himself
oratorically erect--"and my firm nerves shall never tremble! I have
tracked the tufted pocolunas to his lair; I have slain the eight-legged
galliwampus; I have bearded the wallipaloova in his noisome den, and
gazed into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian liar; and I'll
try everything once--except this. But I have known too many too-charming
girls too well. To love them," said Francis Charles sadly, "was a
business education."