“Am I?” said Verty; “I’m glad to hear that.  I thought I was’nt.  And so, sir, you don’t think there’s any objection to my marrying?”

“Hum!—­the subject of marrying again!”

“Yes, sir,” Verty replied, smiling; “I thought I’d marry Redbud.”

“Who? that little Redbud!”

“Yes, sir,” said Verty, “I think I’m in love with her.”

Roundjacket stood amazed at such extraordinary simplicity.

“Sir,” he said, “whether you are an Indian by blood or not, you certainly are by nature.  Extraordinary! who ever heard of a civilized individual using such language!”

“But you know I am not civilized, sir.”

Roundjacket shook his head.

“There’s the objection,” he said; “it is absolutely necessary that a man who becomes the husband of a young lady should be civilized.  But let us dismiss this subject—­Redbud!  Excuse me, Mr. Verty, but you are a very extraordinary young man;—­to have you for—­well, well.  Don’t allude to that again.”

“To what, sir?”

“To Redbud.”

“Why, sir?”

“Because I have nothing to do with it.  I can only give you my general ideas on the subject of marriage.  If you apply them, that is your affair.  A pretty thing on an oath of discovery,” murmured the poetical lawyer.

Verty had not heard the last words; he was reflecting.  Roundjacket watched him with a strange, wistful look, which had much kindness and feeling in it.

“But why not marry?” said Verty, at last; “it seems to me sir, that people ought to marry; I think I could find a great many good reasons for it.”

“Could you; how many?”

“A hundred, I suppose.”

“And I could find a thousand against it,” said Roundjacket.  “Mark me, sir—­except under certain circumstances, a man is not the same individual after marrying—­he deteriorates.”

“Anan?” said Verty.

“I mean, that in most cases it is for the worse—­the change of condition.

“How, sir?”

“Observe the married man,” replied Roundjacket, philosophically—­“see his brow laden with cares, his important look, his solemn deportment.  None of the lightness and carelessness of the bachelor.”

Verty nodded, as much as to say that there was a great deal of truth in this much.

“Then observe the glance,” continued Roundjacket, “if I may be permitted to use a colloquialism which is coming into use—­there is not that brilliant cut of the eye, which you see in us young fellows—­it is all gone, sir!”

Verty smiled.

“The married man frequently delegates his soul to his better half,” continued Roundjacket, rising with his subject; “all his independence is gone.  He can’t live the life of a jolly bachelor, with pipe and slippers, jovial friends and nocturnal suppers.  The pipe is put out, sir—­the slippers run down—­and the joyous laughter of his good companions becomes only the recollection of dead merriment.  He progresses, sir—­does the married man—­from bad to worse; he lives in a state of hen-pecked, snubbed, unnatural apprehension; he shrinks from his shadow; trembles at every sound; and, in the majority of cases, ends his miserable existence, sir, by hanging himself to the bed-post!”