“Of course,” I retorted.  “It is not one of your jokes.  But say, Harry, when you send a poem to a magazine and the editor doesn’t want it, what does he do with it?”

“Returns it.  Ah!”

The “ah” was a gasp.

“You are the hair-splitter this time,” said he, ruefully.

“I am,” said I.  “I could effectually destroy a whole wig of hairs like that.  If you are right in your reasoning as to Maude’s love for me, I am right as regards her love for you.  We are both splitting hairs in most unprofitable fashion.”

“We are,” said Harry, with a sigh.  “There is only one way to settle the matter.”

“And that?”

“Let’s call around there now and ask her.”

“I am agreeable,” said I.

“Often,” said Harry, ringing for our coats.

In a few moments we were ready to depart; and as we stepped out into the night, whom should we run up against but that detestable Jimmie Brown!

“Whither away, boys?” he asked; in his usual bubblesome manner.

“We are going to make a call.”

“Ah!  Well, wait a minute, won’t you?  I have some news.  I’m in great luck, and I want you fellows to join me in a health to the future Mrs. B.”

“Engaged at last, eh, Brown?” said Harry.

I did not speak, for I felt a sudden and most depressing sinking of the heart.

“Yes,” said Brown; and then he told us to whom.

It is not necessary to mention the lady’s name.  Suffice it to say that Harry and I both returned to our corner in the club, discarded our overcoats, and talked about two subjects.

The first was the weather.

The second, the fickleness of women.

Incidentally we agreed that there was something irritating about certain names, and on this occasion James excited our ire somewhat more than was normal.

But we did not lick James.  We had too much regard for some one else to split a hair of his head.

AN AFFINITIVE ROMANCE

I

MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS’S IDEAL

Mr. Augustus Richards was thirty years of age and unmarried.  He could afford to marry, and he had admired many women, but none of them came up to his ideals.  Miss Fotheringay, for instance, represented his notions as to what a woman should be physically, but intellectually he found her wofully below his required standard.  She was tall and stately—­Junoesque some people called her—­but in her conversation she was decidedly flippant.  She was interested in all the small things of life, but for the great ones she had no inclination.  She preferred a dance with a callow youth to a chat with a man of learning.  She worshipped artificial in-door life, but had no sympathy with nature.  The country she abominated, and her ideas of rest consisted solely in a change of locality, which was why she went to Newport every summer, there to indulge in further routs and dances when she wearied of the routs and dances of New York.