Robert E. Lee punch, I'll have to go after it. I took one more
dipper of Robert E. Lee, and then I decided that any girl who
could make that kind of a mix could have me for better or for
worse; and if I didn't propose right there I'll eat your hat.
I told her that I had loved her madly for months, but had never
found the courage to say so till that night. I also mentioned
the fact that even if she was very small and I was large, and
even if the people in the church would say we looked like Rhode
Island and Texas marching out together, that it made no difference
where true love was concerned. I finished it all up with a look
that would have melted the heart of a bank dealer. My work must
have been a little to the sandpaper, or I may have backed up
kind of foolish like, or something. Whatever it was, she answered,
"Billy, your brother's hair is a good deal darker than yours,
isn't it?" Now, what do you think of that frosty-hearted fairy?
Literally forced me to drink that punch, gets me ripened up, and
then throws the hooks into me. As a love-maker I guess I am a
shine. Jim, have you ever gone home late at night and told yourself
in front of the mirror how you loved some girl? and have you ever
seen that same girl walking along the street the next day with
another fellow, and the instant you discovered them, did a great
big lump come into your breast? And did you immediately think of
a lot of things about the fellow you didn't like, although
previously you had rather admired him? Well, that thing you get
in your breast is what we experts call the love lump, and you were
placing yourself in a position to later on become a kind of Patsy
to that girl.

Isn't that love lump all the money, though? It makes a well-developed
case of indigestion look like a sunny summer day. When you come to