The Intrusion of Jimmy

he evening as he remembered-the nervousness, the relief of finding that he was gripping his audience, the growing conviction tha

, Jimmy?" a

of his though

t's

is

know what

The sea air.

ow," said J

ow? Well, wha

n't k

tania still print

e d

t find out her n

N

nks he can burgle a house!"

building on the second flo

in?" sai

pushing on as far as the Park. I

you if you want to do Marathons. I haven't seen you for

ers say things do, but they don't. However, I'll come

ed with his

ow-pipe? Do you realize, my boy, that you've let yourself in for buying a dinner for twelve hungry men n

g of the sort," said Ji

you really me

you think I w

was all a joke? Suppose they fill you full of bullet-holes! Nice sort of fool you'll look, appea

of the profession. Yo

hat you went th

nce, under the stimulus of a challenge, he ceased to be a reasoning being, amenable to argument. And, in the present case, he knew that Willett's words h

cigars. Now, he was lying on his back on th

Arthur Miffli

l, w

nite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table in a roar when you were paying for the dinner? You remind me more of a deaf-mut

ew a dee

mplacently, "sigh if you lik

y sa

of times,"

do you

ask me if I had ever bee

u haven't. You have no soul.

n way," said Mif

ed back on

" he said. "That

looked i

ry fluttering, when the heart seems to thrill within

cut i

s!' I've been through it dozens of times; it is a recognized early symptom. Unless prompt measures are

e sick," Ji

" said Mifflin, ki

nothing

lie,

actically

's be

s like

oo

more comfortable position, a

her until the

t second da

really me

o be going to th

like this. Like a fool, I'd b

tergould, the boy millionaire,

ore cheery in the second cabin. You get to know people so mu

s was th

he first-cabi

utched his

his reminds me of so

Juliet? No. I've got

the slightest

us and Thisbe,' says the story, 'did talk th

didn

ral. You talked a

didn

o say you didn

say a sin

hook his

id. "I thought you wer

did y

sighed

e railing opposite the barber's shop,

sed to sta

ection sometimes," corre

k, and you know it. I am no prude, James, but I feel compelled to say t

eral

less, heart-free. You came off it grave and saddened. Thenceforth, f

bereaved manner, and took a si

restlessly

ly. He was in the mood when a man says things, the memory

tement, you stood and glared at the girl for five days without letting up for a moment. I ca

oughtfully. "And, until you feel that you want to

just before you came in. My somewhat neat expressio

, you're q

lway

ng to do. When I was on the

News long enough t

e more than a week. It's having th

to relieve you of the incubus. Well, James, I shall leave you. I feel more li

es

twenty million. Or is it forty million? Something small. A

d-ni

of his name being called loudly from the street brought Jimmy to

im

the matt

ask. Was sh

ha

blonde?" ye

snappe

ed Mifflin, maki

immy, shuttin

im

ow went

el

or bl

to b

ll. Good

d-ni

Glad he had made a success! But was it a joke? Who was it that said, the point of a joke is like the point of a needle, so small that it is apt to disappear entirely when directed straight at oneself? If anybody else had told him such a limping romance, he would have laughed himself. Only, when you are the center of a romance, however limping, you see it from a different angle

n the fourth day out. Tailor-made. He liked tailor-mades. He liked all her dresses. He liked her. Had she liked him? So hard to tell if you don't get a chance of speaking! She was dark. Arthur liked blondes, Arthur was a fool! Good old Ar

nt, Jimmy w