_after_ thirty-five I consider a man is entitled to think of himself. You
and I have done our duty in this direction, you especially. You have
been blown up by a patent gas lamp--"

He said: "I really think, you know, that was my fault; I think I must
have screwed it up too tight."

I said: "I am quite willing to believe that if there was a wrong way of
handling the thing that is the way you handle it. You should take that
tendency of yours into consideration; it bears upon the argument. Myself,
I did not notice what you did; I only know we were riding peacefully and
pleasantly along the Whitby Road, discussing the Thirty Years' War, when
your lamp went off like a pistol-shot. The start sent me into the ditch;
and your wife's face, when I told her there was nothing the matter and
that she was not to worry, because the two men would carry you upstairs,
and the doctor would be round in a minute bringing the nurse with him,
still lingers in my memory."

He said: "I wish you had thought to pick up the lamp. I should like to
have found out what was the cause of its going off like that."

I said: "There was not time to pick up the lamp. I calculate it would
have taken two hours to have collected it. As to its 'going off,' the
mere fact of its being advertised as the safest lamp ever invented would
of itself, to anyone but you, have suggested accident. Then there was
that electric lamp," I continued.

"Well, that really did give a fine light," he replied; "you said so
yourself."