When Tootles returned, to find King O’Leary in a perplexed self-examination, he was in a fearful state. He slammed the door and dove on the couch, where he gave an exhibition of tearing his hair which would have inspired Mr. Wilbur Montague himself to envy.
“Say, what is this?” said O’Leary, after a moment of amazement. “Love or bills?”
Tootles’ remarks, while intelligible, remained outside the limits of organized speech which the wise fathers who established the dictionary as an uplift have imposed. In the end, when calm had returned, he arose and said, with terrific impressiveness:
“That ends it! King, take witness—I’m through—I’m cured!”
“Oh, Pansy’s a good sort, all right,” said O’Leary, understanding.
“Good sort! Yes; certainly. Do tell me why I, St. George Kidder, with a career, with fame and with riches, a future, should be running after a little smudgy-eyed slip of a girl who hasn’t a thought in her head.”
“Oh, now!”
“She hasn’t. King, I swear she is positively stupid! Fact. Now, honestly, what gets me, why am I pattering at her heels—why?”
“She has beautiful eyes, son.”
“Do you think that’s enough? No; it’s not enough!”