"It's about the most parsimonious style of candle I've ever seen," replied Dicky, "but it would give a little more light if it were trimmed." And he opened his pocket-knife.
"Be very careful," I begged, and Dicky said "Rather!"
"Did you ever notice," he asked, "that you can touch flame all right if you are only quick enough? Now, see me take the top off that candle." If Dicky had a fault it was a tendency to boastfulness. He took the lighted wick between his thumb and his knife-blade, and skilfully scooped the top off. It blazed for two seconds on the edge of the blade—just long enough to show us that all the flame had come with it. Then it went out, and in the darkness at my side I heard a scuffling among waistcoat pockets, and a groan.
"No matches?" I asked in despair.
"Left 'em in my light overcoat pockets, Mamie. I'm a bigger ass than—than Mafferton."
"You are," I said with decision. "No Englishman goes anywhere without his light overcoat. What have you done with yours?"
"Left it in the carriage," replied Dick humbly.
"That shows," said I bitterly, "how little you have learned in England. Propriety in connection with you is evidently like water and a duck's back. An intelligent person would have acquired the light overcoat principle in three days, and never have gone out without it afterward."
"Oh, go on!" replied Dick fiercely. "Go on. I don't mind. I'm not so stuck on myself as I was. But if we've got to die together you might as well forgive me. You'll have to do it at the last moment, you know."
"I suppose you have begun to review your past life," I said grimly, "and that's why you are using so much American slang."