Archie asked if Boggs would do him a personal and particular favor, if it would not cause him much trouble; and on being answered in the affirmative, said he would esteem it a great honor if he could be introduced to Mr. Fern by that gentleman's former business associate.
"I suppose I shall run across him at Midlands, some evening," he said, "and get one of those presentations that are the most aggravating things in the world. I don't want that to happen, and the best way, to use an elegant phrase, is to take the bull by the horns, or in this case, the sheep by the tail. Will you make an accidental call on him to-morrow afternoon and let me be of the party?"
Mr. Boggs responded that he would be delighted. And this matter being settled, all parties could give more direct attention to their lunch than they had been doing for the preceding ten minutes.
"You must have heard of my friend Boggs, in the days when he was a figure on the streets of this town," said Weil, presently, returning to what he knew was the favorite subject of that personage. "You've lived here for twenty years, and of course the name of Walker Boggs is familiar to you."
Mr. Gouger looked a good counterfeit of complete mystification for some seconds, and then a gleam as of sudden recollection shot across his face.
"Certainly, certainly!" he said. "Mr. Boggs was what is popularly known as a lady killer, if I am not mistaken. You got married, did you not, Mr. Boggs, some ten or eleven years ago?"
The party addressed acknowledged the practical correctness of the date.
"Why, it comes back as plain as day," said the critic. "The Herald had a page about you, including your portrait and some verses by a well known poet. It said your marriage had cast a gloom over Manhattan Island and some of the up-river counties."
Mr. Boggs gloomily nodded, to show that the statement was true. Then he touched his most rotund portion with a significant look.
"I'm a widower now," he said, "and nothing but this—this—stands in my way. As Shakespeare says, '’Tis not as deep as a well, nor as wide as a church door, but—' The ladies never look at me now, and all on account of this d—d flesh, which hangs like a millstone around my neck."