"That begs the question, Hughie. It presumes that all the available happiness in the world is contained in one particular tram-car. Besides, the tram-cars you mean are intended for men over thirty. The young ought to walk."
Hughie realised that the conversation was growing rather too subtle for him, and reverted to plain cut and thrust.
"Then you think no man should marry before thirty?" he said.
"Nothing of the kind! It depends on the man. If he is a steady, decent, average sort of fellow, who regards a ledger as a Bible and an office-stool as a stepping-stone to the summit of the universe, and possesses no particular aptitude for the rough-and-tumble of life, the sooner he marries and settles down as a contented old pram-pusher the better for him and the nation. Do you fancy yourself in that line, Hughie?"
"No-o-o," said Hughie reluctantly. "But I might learn," he added hopefully. "I'm a pretty adaptable bloke."
Jimmy Marrable threw his cigar-end out of the window, and sat up.
"Listen, Hughie," he said, "and I'll tell you what you really are. You are the son of a mother who climbed out of her bedroom window (and let herself down a rain-pipe that I wouldn't have trusted a monkey on) in order to elope with the man she loved. Your father was the commander of as tough a native regiment as I have ever known. Your grandfather was an explorer. I've been a bit of a rolling-stone myself. About one relation of yours in three dies in his bed. You come of a stock which prefers to go and see things for itself rather than read about them in the newspaper, and which has acquired a considerable knowledge of the art of handling men in the process. Those are rather rare assets. If you take a woman in tow at the tender age of twenty-one, there will be a disaster. Either you will sit at home and eat your heart out, or you will go abroad and leave her to eat out hers. Am I talking sense?"
Hughie sighed like a furnace.
"Yes, confound you!" he said.
"Will you promise not to rush into matrimony, then?"