[Illustration: The handsomest girl I had set eyes upon in a month of moons.]
"And what, may I ask, was the fatal card?" inquired the old man, folding his paper.
"The ace of spades; we always choose that gloomy card in secret societies. There is something deadly and suggestive about it," I answered morbidly.
"Indeed."
"Yes. Ah, if only you knew the terrible life we lead, we who conspire! Every day brings forth some galling disappointment. We push a king off into the dark, and another rises immediately in his place. Futility, futility everywhere! If only there were some way of dynamiting habit and custom! I am a Russian; all my family are perishing in Siberian mines,"—dismally.
"Fudge!" said the girl.
"Tommy-rot!" said the amiable old gentleman.
"Uncle, his hair is too short for an anarchist."