“‘I cannot,’ he again said, looking at her tenderly.
“‘Cannot?’ repeated the girl, a shade of anger tinging the tone in which the words were uttered. ‘And pray, sir, what is it that so imperatively calls you hence?’
“‘Bending over her with a careless grace that artfully concealed the slight bagginess at the knees of his pants, Plutarch said, in low, bitter tones that were terrible in their intensity:
“‘I have broken my suspenders!’”
H. C. Dodge, as a writer of humorous and witty verse, has few equals in America. His style is somewhat like that of the late lamented Tom Hood. One of Mr. Dodge’s productions is entitled
CONTRARY MAN.
Some men do write when they do wrong
And some do live who dye;
And some are short when they are long