“I have,” declared Merry. “Since going on the road I have thought of it a great deal, for you must know that I have seen how easy it is for a traveling showman to make the acquaintance of pretty girls wherever he goes. I don’t know that I have ever expressed myself on the subject before.”
“Yeou ain’t much of a hand to talk abaout gals,” said Ephraim.
“No, I do not like to say anything about them unless I can say something pleasant. I think girls are the fairest creatures in all the world, but they have their faults, the same as other fair things.”
Hodge smiled sarcastically.
“They’re all faults!” he declared. “I have grown disgusted with them.”
“Oh, you’re a pessimist!” said Frank. “You are too extreme. But I really wish there was some way to warn the young girls of the country against the folly of flirting with traveling actors.”
“There is no way.”
“I am afraid not. They will continue to flirt, as they have in the past, and no end of sorrow and shame will come from it.”
“Some gals do it,” said Ephraim, “because they think they kin hev some fun that way without goin’ too fur.”
“When the first false step is taken no human being can tell where it may lead.”