Jim, if you can you had better wait for her to break the ice. If you don't, from that time on she will make you look like a white chip. A woman is like one of the big trusts. The instant she acquires a controlling interest in you she becomes a regular ring-master. She will make you jump through, lie down and roll over, walk lame, and play dead; and don't think for a moment you won't do it, either. All the rest of them have. You show me a man who hasn't been up against such a game, and I'll show you a man who lacks experience. A lot of these handsome gazabes go around looking wise, winning girls out, and thinking they are the happy thought. That's because they have had a run of luck and landed in among a bunch of marks. Let them keep it up. It is only a matter of time until they will stumble over a live wire, and then it will be pay-day on the Wabash. It's grand to see a great big slob running along behind some little bit of a girl, a faithful Fido, taking his orders like a politician. I know what I'm talking about, Jim, because I have certainly been the original human dog. I used to think I was the Village Rubber--but not any more. They have made me look like thirty cents not once, but a dozen times. I can gaze into the dim, hazy distance and see where every one of these coy, clever fellows is going to get it, and get it good, and I am glad of it. My hat's off. Say, Jim, I'm not much for these love stories in the books. They are liable to mislead a fellow. You read how Benton Brockway, the hero, looks into pretty Bessie Bell's blue eyes, places his hand on her shapely shoulder, and tells her how he loves her. Even her downcast eye doesn't hide the pearly tear as she answers "Yes." Now, I can look into their eyes for four hours, and I can tell them how I love them till I am black in the face, and they seem to like it; but whenever I come to the laying of the hand on the shapely shoulder part, it's all off. I am told that I am no gentleman, and to roll my hoop out of that house forever. What's a fellow going to do? You can never tell whether a girl is really sore or whether she is stalling. A girl might be for a fellow strong, and yet she wouldn't admit it for a thousand dollars. There may be some things I wouldn't admit for a thousand, but I don't just recall them at the present time. It only goes to show that things are not always what they seem. Many a girl wears a sailor hat who doesn't own a yacht.