"A week ago," said Eustace Hignett, "I will ask you to picture me seated after some difficulty in a carriage in a New York subway; I got into conversation with a girl with an elephant gun."
Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the elephant gun.
"She was my soul-mate," proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. "I didn't know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a wonderful personality, and this elephant gun. She was bringing the gun away from the down-town place where she had taken it to be mended."
"Did she shoot you with it?"
"Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!"
"The girl must have been a fool!" said Sam bitterly. "The chance of a life-time and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?"
"I haven't seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun, and explained its mechanism. You can imagine how she soothed my aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at the moment—quite unnecessarily if I had only known—because it was only a couple of days since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been broken off. Well, we parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it may seem, I forgot all about her."
"Do it again!"
"Tell it again?"
"Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again."