When Osborn dressed for his wedding he felt in what he called
first-class form. He thought great things of life; life had been
amazingly decent to him throughout. It had never struck him any
untoward blow. The death of his parents had been sadness, certainly,
but it was a natural calamity, the kind every sane man expected sooner
or later and braced himself for. His mother had left him a very little
money, and his father had left him a very little money; small as the
sum total was, it gave a man the comfortable impression of having
private means. He paid the first instalments on the dream-flat's
furniture with it, and there was some left still, to take Marie and
him away on a fine honey-moon, and to brighten their first year with
many jollities. His salary was all right for a fellow of his age.
Marie was not far wrong when she said that they were starting "awfully
well."

Osborn sang:

"And--when--I--tell--them,
And I'm certainly going to tell them,
That I'm the man whose wife you're one day going to be,
They'll never believe me--"

That latest thing in revue songs fitted the case to a fraction. He was
the luckiest man in the whole great round world.

Osborn was pleased with his reflection in the glass. For his wedding
he had bought his first morning-coat and silk hat. He had been as
excited as a girl. He had a new dress-suit, too, and a dinner-jacket
from the best tailor in town, ready packed for travelling. He had been
finicking over his coloured shirts, handkerchiefs, and socks; a set of