"Worse? I thought you had reached the worst when you were repulsed by Louie. What worse thing can happen than that? Weren't all your thoughts on death intent? Didn't you repeat your order for a gravestone?"
"True, old boy; very correct; but then I was just beginning to rally, you know, and all that, when down comes a new bother, and, if I weren't so uncommonly fruitful in resource, this day would have seen an end of Jack Randolph. I see you're rather inclined to chaff me about the gravestone, but I tell you what it is, Macrorie, if this sort of thing continues you'll be in for it. I've pulled through this day, but whether I can pull through to-morrow or not is a very hard thing to say."
At this Jack struck a match, and solemnly lighted his pipe, which all this time he had been filling.
"'Pon my word, old chap," said I, "you seem bothered again, and cornered, and all that. What's up? Any thing new? Out with it, and pour it info this sympathetic ear."
Jack gave about a dozen solemn puffs. Then he removed his pipe with his left hand. Then with his right hand he stroked his brow. Then he said, slowly and impressively:
"_She's here!_"
"She!" I repeated. "What she? Which? When? How?"
"Miss Phillips!" said Jack.
"Miss Phillips!" I cried. "Miss Phillips! Why, haven't you been expecting her? Didn't she write, and tell you that she was coming, and all that?"
"Yes; but then you know I had half an idea that something or other would turn up to prevent her actual arrival. There's many a slip, you know, 'tween cup and lip. How did I know that she was really coming? It didn't seem at all probable that any thing so abominably embarrassing should be added to all my other embarrassments."
"Probable? Why, my dear fellow, it seems to me the most probable thing in the world. It's always so. Misfortunes never come single. Don't you know that they always come in clusters? But come, tell me all about it.
In the first place, you've seen her, of course?"
"Oh, of course. I heard of her arrival yesterday morn, and went off at once to call on her. Her reception of me was not very flattering. She was, in fact, most confoundedly cool. But you know my way. I felt awfully cut up, and insisted on knowing the reason of all this. Then it all came out."
Jack paused.
"Well, what was it?"
"Why, confound it, it seems that she had been here two days, and had been expecting me to come every moment. Now, I ask you, Macrorie, as a friend, wasn't that rather hard on a fellow when he's trying to do the very best he can, and is over head and ears in all kinds of difficulties? You know," he continued, more earnestly, "the awful bothers I've had the last few days. Why, man alive, I had only just got her letter, and hadn't recovered from the shock of that. And now, while I was still in a state of bewilderment at such unexpected news, here she comes herself! And then she begins to pitch into me for not calling on her before."
"It was rather hard, I must confess," said I, with my never-failing sympathy; "and how did it all end?"
Jack heaved a heavy--a very heavy--sigh.
"Well," said he, "it ended all right--for the time. I declared that I had not expected her until the following week; and, when she referred to certain passages in her letter, I told her that I had misunderstood her altogether, which was the solemn fact, for I swear, Macrorie, I really didn't think, even if she did come, that she'd be here two or three days after her letter came. Two or three days--why, hang it all, she must have arrived here the very day I got her letter. The letter must have come through by land, and she came by the way of Portland.
Confound those abominable mails, I say! What business have those wretched postmasters to send their letters through the woods and snow?
Well, never mind. I made it up all right."
"All right?"
"Oh, yes. I explained it all, you know. I cleared up every thing in the completest way. In fact, I made a full, ample, intelligible, and perfectly satisfactory explanation of the whole thing. I showed that it was all a mistake, you know--that I was humbugged by the mails, and all that sort of thing, you know. So she relented, and we made it all up, and I took her out driving, and we had a glorious time, though the roads were awful--perfect lakes, slush no end, universal thaw, and all that. But we did the drive, and I promised to go there again to-day."
"And did you call on the widow?"
"Oh, yes; but before I went there I had to write a letter to Number Three."
"Number Three! You must have had your hands full?"
"Hands full? I should think I had, my boy. You know what agony writing a letter is to me. It took me two hours to get through it. You see I had written her before, reproaching her for not running off with me, and she had answered me. I got her answer yesterday morning. She wrote back a repetition of her reason for not going, and pleaded her father, who she said would go mad if she did such a thing. Between you and me, Macrorie, that's all bosh. The man's as mad as a March hare now. But this wasn't all. What do you think? She actually undertook to haul me over the coals about the widow."
"What! has she heard about it?"
"Oh, yes. Didn't I tell you before that she kept the run of me pretty closely? Well, she's evidently heard all about me and the widow, and accordingly, after a brief explanation about her father, she proceeded to walk into me about the widow. Now that was another shock. You see, the fact is, I pitched into her first for this very reason, and thought, if I began the attack, she'd have to take up a strictly defensive attitude. But she was too many guns for me. No go, my boy.
Not with Number Three. She dodged my blow, and then sprang at me herself, and I found myself thrown on my defence. So you see I had to write to her at once."
Jack sighed heavily, and quaffed some Bass.
"But how the mischief could you handle such a subject? Two hours! I should think so. For my part, I don't see how you managed it at all."
"Oh, I got through," said Jack. "I explained it all, you know. I cleared up every thing in the completest way. In fact, I made a full, perfect, intelligible, ample, and satisfactory explanation--"
"Oh, that's all downright bosh now, old boy," I interrupted. "How could you explain it? It can't be explained."
"But I did though," said Jack. "I don't remember how. I only know the letter struck me as just the thing, and I dropped it into the post-office when on my way to the widow's."
"The widow's?"
"Yes, as soon as I finished the letter, I hurried off to the widow's."
"By Jove!" I cried, aghast "So that's the style of thing, is it? Look here, old man, will you allow me to ask you, in the mildest manner in the world, how long you consider yourself able to keep up this sort of thing?"
"Allow you? Certainly not. No questions, old chap. I don't question myself, and I'll be hanged if I'll let anybody else. I'm among the breakers. I'm whirling down-stream. I have a strong sense of the aptness of Louie's idea about the juggler and the oranges. But the worst of it is, I'm beginning to lose confidence in myself."
And Jack leaned his head back, and sent out a long beam of smoke that flew straight up and hit the ceiling. After which he stared at me in unutterable solemnity.
"Well," said I, "go on. What about the widow?"
"The widow--oh--when I got there I found another row."
"Another?"
"Yes, another--the worst of all. But by this time I had grown used to it, and I was as serene as a mountain-lake."
"But--the row--what was it about?"
"Oh, she had heard about my engagement to Miss Phillips, and her arrival; so she at once began to talk to me like a father. The way she questioned me--why the Grand Inquisitor is nothing to it. But she didn't make any thing by it. You see I took up the Fabian tactics and avoided a direct engagement."
"How's that?"
"Why, I wouldn't answer her."
"How could you avoid it?"
"Pooh I--easy enough--I sat and chaffed her, and laughed at her, and called her jealous, and twitted her, no end. Well, you know, at last she got laughing herself, and we made it all up, and all that sort of thing, you know; still, she's very pertinacious, and even after we made up she teased and teased, till she got an explanation out of me."
"An explanation! What, another?"
"Oh, yes--easy enough--I explained it all, you know, I cleared up every thing perfectly. I made an ample, intelligible, full, frank, and thoroughly satisfactory explanation of the whole thing, and--"