He may have been right about the wife. But I thought of the look that
Alice had given him, and---

"Girls seem to like me right enough," he said, "but it don't go no
further than that. The trouble is that I'm so long, and I always seem
to get shook after little girls. At least there was one little girl
in Bendigo that I was properly gone on."

"And wouldn't she have you?"

"Well, it seems not."

"Did you ask her?"

"Oh, yes, I asked her right enough."

"Well, and what did she say?"

"She said it would be redicilus for her to be seen trottin' alongside
of a chimbley like me."

"Perhaps she didn't mean that. There are any amount of little women
who like tall men."

"I thought of that too--afterwards. P'r'aps she didn't mean it that
way. I s'pose the fact of the matter was that she didn't cotton on to
me, and wanted to let me down easy. She didn't want to hurt me
feelin's, if yer understand--she was a very good-hearted little girl.
There's some terrible tall fellers where I come from, and I know two