quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry.”

“Do you?”

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“Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?”

“I don’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she?”

“Guess.”

“Do I know her?”

“Guess.”

“I am not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, with my

brains frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess,

you must ask me to dinner.”

“Well then, I’ll tell you,” said Stryver, coming slowly into a

sitting posture. “Sydney, I rather despair of making myself

intelligible to you, because you are such an insensible dog.”

“And you,” returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, “are

such a sensitive and poetical spirit.”

“Come!” rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, “though I don’t

prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know

better), still I am a tenderer sort of fellow than you.”

“You are a luckier, if you mean that.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean I am a man of moremore”

“Say gallantry, while you are about it,” suggested Carton.

“Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man,” said

Stryver, inflating himself at his friend, as he made the punch,

“who cares more to be agreeable, who takes more pains to be

agreeable, who knows better how to be agreeable, in a woman’s

society, than you do.”

“Go on,” said Syd