“Your mama, fortunately for Reveille and me, always had a soft spot for idiots,” explained the man, stroking the horse’s nose affectionately. “But I will say this for the old fellow: if most folly resulted as well as his, there would be a big premium on fools.”
Reveille winked his off eye at the other steeds.
“Aren’t these humans comical?” he laughed.
A WARNING TO LOVERS
❦
Before some blazing logs, which fill a deep fireplace with warmth that overflows to just the right extent into the room, stands, slightly skewed, a sofa. The sofa is a comfortable one. It is short, deep, and low; and the arms have a suggestion of longing to be filled that is truly seductive. In addition, two down cushions imply that the sofa is quite prepared to fit itself to any figure, be it long, short, broad, or narrow. Altogether, it is a most satisfactory sofa.
But the satisfactoriness does not end here. Seated at one end of that sofa is a girl, clearly in that neither grass nor hay period, which begins at sixteen and ends at eighteen. Not that it is intended to suggest that because the girl is neither hay nor grass she is unattractive. Quite the reverse. New-mown hay is the sweetest, and the girl, if neither child nor woman, is, in her way, just as sweet.
In algebra, when a, b, and c are computed, it is possible to find the unknown quantity x. Applying an algebraic formula to the above, we at once deduce what is necessary to complete the factors. It may be stated thus: a, a sofa, plus b, a charming girl; and as a, a sofa, must be divided by two, we find the unknown quantity to be x, a man, and the product of our a, b, and x to equal xxx, or triple bliss. Nor is this wrong. The sofa does not do more than seat two people comfortably, yet at the present moment there are little spaces at both ends. Concerning the other details of this a ÷ 2 + b + x − 0 (i. e. Mrs. Grundy), it seems needless to enlarge.
“And isn’t it wonderful, Freddy, that you should love me and I should love you?” cooed the girl.
“Just out of sight,” replied Freddy.