"Jim, old boy, let me congratulate you." And we shook hands over this creature who was to wreck our happy home—still, I felt there wouldn't be enough crockery to continue on unless the thing was settled in church or at Sing Sing pretty soon.
"When is it to come off?" I continued, that question usually being No. 2 to the hand-shake and congratulations.
"Ben, I mention this matter because I feel that I need your friendship now more than ever," said he, disregarding my inquiry in a way which clearly showed that Cupid had stubbed a toe. "I am up against it. Tell me, what should be done? You must know a lot about such matters, and I don't seem to understand. It's the old man, her pa; a little whipper-snapper of a dude. I could swat him with my little finger and settle him in a minute. George! I've a mind to, at that."
"That, of course, is out of the question," I advised, tackling the matter as if time and again the fat of my theories had been tried out into the dripping of wedded affinities. "Soft dealing with parents is essential." This wisdom came also as if I were quoting from a book by a Mormon, who had handled every variety of father-in-law. "On what does pa base his opposition?"
"Well, I'll tell you," said Jim, preparing to confess all and let me do the penance. "But it's such blamed nonsense, I'm almost afraid to. It shows what an infernal old fool he is."
"How old is pa?" I inquired.
"Oh, he's an old 'un."
"Says you're old enough to be her father, doesn't he?"
"That's it, but he's off; and how would you get around it, anyway—by postponing it?"
Jim's notion of ages, and Tescheron's, I feared were both wide of the mark, but I let that pass. One was vain and mad, and the other did not observe closely.