thing; but it takes two to make a marriage, and to date I haven't met a
girl who didn't seem to think the contract was too big to be taken on.

Looking back, it seems to me that I came nearer to getting over the
home-plate with Ann Selby than with most of the others. In fact, but
for circumstances over which I had no dashed control, I am inclined to
think that we should have brought it off. I'm bound to say that, now
that what the poet chappie calls the first fine frenzy has been on the
ice for awhile and I am able to consider the thing calmly, I am deuced
glad we didn't. She was one of those strong-minded girls, and I hate to
think of what she would have done to me.

At the time, though, I was frightfully in love, and, for quite a while
after she definitely gave me the mitten, I lost my stroke at golf so
completely that a child could have given me a stroke a hole and got
away with it. I was all broken up, and I contend to this day that I was
dashed badly treated.

Let me give you what they call the data.

One day I was lunching with Ann, and was just proposing to her as
usual, when, instead of simply refusing me, as she generally did, she
fixed me with a thoughtful eye and kind of opened her heart.

"Do you know, Reggie, I am in doubt."

"Give me the benefit of it," I said. Which I maintain was pretty good
on the spur of the moment, but didn't get a hand. She simply ignored
it, and went on.