"Spooning as usual?" remarked one of them to me.
"Miss Eva, won't you ask Mr. Todd to give him a lesson in proposing? I don't believe he knows how to do it. A deplorable state of ignorance!" said another.
A merry group soon joined them, and I did not get another chance that evening. However, I went to my room happy, for I knew I should be successful on the morrow. Eva loved me: her mother had said as much when I overheard her in the arbor on the mountain-side, and I knew Aunt Stunner would have no objection, as my income exceeded Todd's. In an easy-chair by the open window I thought over my resolution, and counted myself a fortunate man. In the midst of this reverie the door burst open, shut with a bang, and Ned Hardcash threw himself on a fauteuil opposite me.
"What's up now?" I cried. "Has Harry Basset lost?" Ned was always deep on the turf, and I could think of nothing else that would cut him up so much.
"D—n Harry Basset! I say, Charley, haven't you some brandy?"
"Too hot for brandy to-night," I said: "take some of this," pushing him a bottle.
"Stuff!" and he looked at it contemptuously. "If you can't treat a poor devil more like a man when he comes, he will go;" and he rose with a jerk.
"Sit down, old fellow! or rather go to that closet and get what you want—enough there for a night or two."
He looked the worse for hard drink already, but of course I could not refuse him if he wanted it. It is true politeness, if your friend wants to commit suicide, to sharpen the razor for him and ask no questions. I leaned back while he mixed a glass with seltzer and drank it greedily. Finally, when he looked more composed, I said, "I want to ask you a question, Ned." I thought of Blanche Furnaval's strange conduct on seeing Ned before me, and resolved to ask him if he could explain it. "I believe you know something about the queer ways of women. Can you tell—"
"Look here, Charley," he broke out savagely: "I want one thing understood. You are always teasing and bothering about the women; and as you have not got a piece of flesh as big as a pea for a heart, you will never understand anything about them; so, if you don't want to set me crazy, just let that subject down while I am here."