Cutt & Slashem's critic, ignoring the peculiar character of the metaphor used, remarked politely that he thought no lady of sense would put great stress on such an insignificant matter.
"Insignificant!" echoed Boggs. "I'll bet it's fifty inches around, come! And it's not the 'ladies of sense' I'm after. Quite the contrary."
One of Archie Weil's explosive laughs followed this statement, which caused an expression of mild injury to settle over the countenance of Mr. Boggs.
"You're getting on toward forty, and you ought to quit," said Weil. "Confound the women! Let them go."
"That's well enough to talk about," replied Boggs, gruffly. "How would you like to follow your own advice?"
Weil uttered an exclamation.
"I? I have precious little to do with them, I assure you. For a man of my correct habits I have the worst name of any one I know. Everybody insinuates things about me, and they can prove nothing."
"We'll ask Isaac Leveson about that," sneered Boggs. "By-the-way, that wouldn't be a bad place to take young Roseleaf to, when you get to instructing him in earnest. I met the young fellow on the avenue last night and walked around with him for a couple of hours. He's a darling!"
"Roseleaf?" cried both the other gentlemen, in one breath.
"To be sure. How the women stared at him! I couldn't blame them; his waist isn't over thirty, and he's as handsome as—as I was at his age. I told him he could have all the loveliness in New York at his feet, if he liked."