"Of course. Didn't I say the worst?"
"Surely you won't mention the time I kicked the dog and smashed up the cut-glass?"
"Yes, I will, and how you played the hose on poor Jean, and all the other demoniacal things you have done."
At that he would say, "Wow—Wow," again, but the idea amused him, and scarcely a day passed without inquiries about the biography.
"You won't tell the worst really, will you, Mowgy? You will not mention the time I got squiffy, or the time I pretended I was a crazy man and miawed in the trolley car?"
"When I say everything, I mean everything."
"Then you must tell about the time in Paris when you tried to murder me, and when, mistaking a strange man for me, you wrote him such a villainous letter."
"Concerning these you are safe. There is too much about myself in those incidents to interest people. Like Cæsar, the good will be interred with your bones."
"No one will believe there could have been such a demon. They will say the remarkable thing about it is that you have survived."
We joked about it a great deal during the winter, Mr. Saltus suggesting incidents to be included or omitted.