Huey, for his part, put his savings in the bank as a nest-egg towards the twenty thousand pounds—not that he did not think a few thousands less than that amount would be sufficient.
On the following Sunday Huey was seated near to Lady Macquarie’s chair, talking to Soft Sam, when he was astounded to see amongst the traps and buggies doing the round Alec and Bertha in a sulky side by side. Alec gave a wave with his whip hand as he flashed past, but it was only Soft Sam that responded.
“That young fellow seems to be making the pace pretty hot,” said Sam.
“I knew the girl first,” was all Huey could answer.
“Then why didn’t you stick to her, man? A filly is always such an uncertain kind of animal. You want to yard and brand them on the jump, so to speak, when you have made up your mind to run them in. No man understands women till he has no further use of the information. There is not one in a hundred of them is any good till they are thoroughly broken in, and whether they are worth the trouble I very much doubt. Did you ever tell the girl you wanted her?”
“No,” said Huey.
“Then why don’t you if you think that way? Any girl is to be had for the asking if you go the right way about it. Praise them up; you can’t put it on too thick. Keep at ’em all the time, and be as deaf as a post to all they say that does not suit you. And don’t you go away thinking this girl is different to other girls; that is where I have seen smarter chaps than you make the mistake. All girls are alike, as alike as two peas. Of course they vary outside, and have different styles with them, but the bed-rock, so to speak, is the same all the time. But if you take my advice, which I know you won’t—young fellows never do—you will just leave the girls alone for a year or two. They spoil more men for business, and get more of them into trouble, than anything else.”
And then the old man launched forth into reminiscences of all the promising men he had known go to the dogs after petticoats. But Huey did not attend, his mind was agitating wilds plans of what he should say and what he should do when he next met Alec and Bertha.
And the day for him was a horror, the park a desolation, and through the yellow of his eyes the whole world out of joint.
* * * * *