"I guess I'm pretty stupid to-night. I still don't see it."
"You will," asserted his host. "You see, she's a girl who's seen a great deal of the evil of drink. She has a horror of it. If she thought that Jones had broken his pledge to her, she'd throw him over."
"'Throw him over?' But he's dead!" said the dummy-chucker.
"She doesn't know that," retorted his host.
"Why don't you tell her?"
"Because I want to marry her."
"Well, I should think the quickest way to get her would be to tell her about Jones——"
"You don't happen to know the girl," interrupted the other. "She's a girl of remarkable conscience. If I should tell her that Jones died in Brazil, she'd enshrine him in her memory. He'd be a hero who had died upon the battle-field. More than that—he'd be a hero who had died upon the battle-field in a war to which she had sent him. His death would be upon her soul. Her only expiation would be to be faithful to him forever."
"I won't argue about it," said the dummy-chucker. "I don't know her. Only—I guess your whisky has got me. I don't see it at all."
His host leaned eagerly forward now.