"I will not attempt to bandy sentimentalities with you, sir. I am a practical man, a scientist, if you wish; and I came here to tell that girl that my breaking off the engagement—you must know all about it—was wrong. I told my father to come, for just at that time I didn't feel that as a man who looks forward to something a little more than a name I could afford to marry her. But I was wrong; any living man could afford to marry her. I was wrong, and that ought to settle it."
"And I think, sir, that it does settle it as far as you are concerned."
"Do you mean that she won't marry me? Oh, yes, she will, not out of any foolish love, but because she would be proud of my success. Well, I may not overtake her, but I will write to her. Yes, that will do as well. She will want to know how things are getting along here, and will write to you, and when she does I wish you would show me her letter. What are you laughing at? Haven't you got any sense at all?"
"I hope so, but I am not so much of a scientist that I am a fool."
"No, but you are so much of a fool that you are not a scientist, by a d——d sight."
He had me there, and it was his time to laugh, and he did. He was so tickled that he roared, walking up and down the passage; and he was so pleased that he held out his hand to shake upon the merit of his joke. I was not disposed to be surly and I shook hands with him, and he clapped me on the shoulder, still laughing, and declared that it was a piece of wit worthy of the dissecting-room, and that he would jolt his fellows with it.
"I am glad you are so much pleased," I remarked.
"Why, don't you think it's good, eh? Of course, you do. Well, it's better to part laughing, anyway."
"You are not too much of a scientist to be a philosopher," I said. And I expected him to continue his line of deduction and to say that I was too much of a philosopher to be a scientist, but he did not; he sobered and gravely remarked:
"Yes, I am devilish sorry that this thing came about, and I hope that Guinea will not take a romantic view of it. I guess they'll be back after a while, if Alf is cleared, and from what I hear I suppose he will be."