“My swaller,” he said plaintively, “was in kinks before the boolyon was served.”

“You say,” murmured Ajax, “that Miss Dutton’s appetite was good?”

“It was just grand,” replied the unhappy bard.  “I never seen a lady eat cup-custards with sech relish.”

“We may infer, then,” observed my brother, “that Miss Birdie is still in happy ignorance of your condition; otherwise pity for you would surely have tempered that craving for cup-custards.”

“I dun’no’, boys, about that.  Me an’ Miss Birdie sung out o’ the same hynm book, and—­and I sort o’ showed down.  I reckon she knows what ails Jasper Jasperson.”

Ajax unwisely congratulated the lovelorn one upon this piece of news.  He said that the Rubicon was now passed, and retreat impossible.  We noted the absence of the rosebud, and Jasperson blushingly confessed that he had presented the flower to his best girl after dinner, an act of homage—­so we presumed—­in recognition of the lady’s contempt of danger in mixing pickled cucumbers with cup-custards.

“After that,” said Jasperson, “I thought of the album, an’ ’twas then my feet begun to get cold.  But I up and as’t to see it, as bold as a coyote in a hen-roost.  Then she sez, kind of soft an’ smilin’:  ’Why, Mister Jasper, what d’you want to see my album for? you don’t know my folks.’”

“A glorious opportunity,” said Ajax.  “What did you reply, my buck?”

“Dog-gone it!  I’d ought to have sailed right in, but I sot there, shiverin’, an’ said:’  Oh! because ...’ jest like a school-girl.  And I could see that the answer made her squirm.  She must ha’ thought I was the awflest fool.  But to save me that’s all I could stammer out—­’Oh, because ...’”

“Well,” said Ajax, encouragingly, “the best of us may be confounded in love and war.”

“You do put heart into a man,” murmured the little fellow.  “Wal, sir, we sot down an’ looked through the album.  And on the first page was Miss Birdie’s father, the mortician and arterialist.”

“The what?” we exclaimed.

“Undertaker and em-bammer.  He’s an expert, too.  Why, Miss Birdie was a-tellin’ me—­”

I ventured to interrupt him.  “I don’t think, Jasperson, I should like an undertaker for a father-in-law.  Have you considered that point?”

“I have, gen’lemen.  It might come in mighty handy.  Wal, he was the homeliest critter I ever seen.  I dassn’t ring in that little song an’ dance you give me.  And on the nex’ page was Mis’ Dutton.”  He sighed softly and looked upward.

“The mother,” said Ajax briskly.  “Now, I dare swear that she’s a good-looking woman.  Nature attends to such matters.  Beauty often marries the b——­ the homely man.”

“Mis’ Dutton,” said Jasperson solemnly, “is now a-singing in the heavenly choir, an’ bein’ dead I can’t say nothing; but, gen’lemen, ye’ll understand me when I tell ye that Miss Birdie never got her fine looks from her maw.  Not on your life!”