"You are a good deal of a fool, but not such a d——d one as that!" he said.
"It's exactly what I have done," was my reply. "When the answers come in I shall expect you to help me pick out the prizes."
He laughed, refusing at first to be drawn into what he thoroughly believed a trap to catch him. Then he studied my face and grew doubtful.
"Anybody but you, Don, might get some fun out of this. If you really have put such an ad. in the paper, the best thing you can do is to turn the entire lot of replies over to me, for investigation after you have left the country. But," he grew very sober, "to prance around among that sort of stuff yourself—at this time—would almost certainly put you back where you were last winter, with less chance than ever of recovery."
It was a much rougher way of putting it than I had expected, and, to tell the truth, there was something creepy in the suggestion.
"Your generosity is fully appreciated," I replied, with some dignity, "but I cannot think of exposing you to such terrible dangers. On reflection I do not think it best to trouble you in this matter. It would be a source of never-ending regret were I to return from abroad, and learn that you had taken my old place in the Sanitarium."
Hume threw the butt of his finished cigar into a cuspidor and lit another one nonchalantly.
"Don't you really see the difference?" he asked, when he found the weed drawing satisfactorily. "To me the adventures that might grow out of meeting a dozen or a hundred pretty women would result in nothing worse than passing some agreeable evenings. I never lost my head over one of the sex, and I never shall. If Mr. Donald Camran could say as much, I would tell him to carry out his intention. But, I leave it to you, my dear boy, to prophesy the result, if you go into this thing."
I told him, with some mental misgivings, to be sure, that I had learned my lesson during the year that was past. No woman could make me lose my head again. At the same time I had not gotten over my admiration for the sex, and I saw no reason to do so.
"I'm beginning to believe you're not fooling," said Hume, after studying my countenance again. "Now, tell me precisely what your game is. Let us have the scheme, just as it lies in your mind and, if there's a redeeming feature about it, trust me as a true friend to say so."