"I heard you saw your lady friends off this morning, Bob," I said,
and was sorry I said it, even before he answered.

"Oh, they ain't no friends of mine," he said. "Only four' poor
devils of women. I thought they mightn't like to stand waitin' with
the crowd on the platform, so I jest offered to get their tickets an'
told 'em to wait round at the back of the station till the bell
rung. . . . An' what do yer think they did, Harry?" he went on, with
an exasperatingly unintelligent grin. "Why, they wanted to kiss me."

"Did they?"

"Yes. An' they would have done it, too, if I hadn't been so
long. . . . Why, I'm blessed if they didn't kiss me hands."

"You don't say so."

"God's truth. Somehow I didn't like to go on the platform with them
after that; besides, they was cryin', and I can't stand women cryin'.
But some of the chaps put them into an empty carriage." He thought a
moment. Then:

"There's some terrible good-hearted fellers in the world," he
reflected.

I thought so too. "Bob," I said, "you're a single man. Why don't
you get married and settle down?"

"Well," he said, "I ain't got no wife an' kids, that's a fact. But
it ain't my fault."