"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
excess of the supply. Don't you know--no, you don't: I got to that
first--that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see--?"

"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
next. I pant with anticipation."

"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"

"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."

"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
money for two, pining away in--in innocuous desuetude--hundreds of
them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
Now, why not take one, Nat--when you come to consider it, it's your
duty--marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"