Take that book at your elbow--yes, either one; it doesn't matter. Now turn to where the hero first discovers his frightful condition--long after it has become neighborhood property.... He bent his head in humility. He was not worthy of her!... Something like that? Those may not be the precise words; but he groaned. He always groans. By-the-way, how this man-saying must amuse womankind! Yes, and they actually say it too--real, live, flesh-and-blood men. Who was it said life was a poor imitation of literature? Happily, either these people are insincere or they reconsider the matter--else what should we do for families? It is to be said that Jeff Bransford lacked this becoming delicacy. If he groaned he swore also; if he decided that Miss Ellinor Hoffman deserved a better man than he was, he also highly resolved that she should not have him. "For, after all, you know," said Jeff to Alice: "I'm sure he's nothing extra--a quiet man and plain, And modest--though there isn't much of which he could be vain. And had I mind to chant his praise, this were the kindest line-- Somehow, she loves him dearly--this little love of mine!" CHAPTER XVII TWENTIETH CENTURY "And there that hulking Prejudice Sat all across the road. * * * * * "I took my hat, I took my coat, My load I settled fair, I approached that awful incubus With an absent-minded air-- And I walked directly through him As if he wasn't there!" --_An Obstacle_: CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON. Johnny Dines rode with a pleasant jingle down the shady street of Los Banos de Santa Eulalia del Norte. His saddle was new, carven, wrought with silver; his bridle shone as the sun, his spurs as bright stars; he shed music from his feet. Jeff saw him turn to Casa Escobar: apple blossoms made a fragrant lane for him. He paused at Jeff's tree. "_Alto alli!_" said Johnny. The words, as sharp command, can be managed in two brisk syllables. The sound is then: "_Altwai!_" It is a crisp and startling sound, and the sense of it in our idiom is: "Hands up!" Jeff had been taking a late breakfast _al fresco_; he made glad room on his bench. "Light, stranger, and look at your saddle! Pretty slick saddle, too. Guess your playmates must 'a' went home talking to themselves last night." "They're going to kill a maverick for you at Arcadia and give a barbecue," said Johnny. The cult of _nil admirari_ reaches its highest pitch of prosperity in the cow-countries, and Johnny knew that it was for him to broach tidings unasked. "Oh, that reminds me--how's old Lars Porsena?" said Jeff, now free to question. "Him? He's all right," said Johnny casually. "Goin' to marry one or more of the nurses. They're holdin' elimination contests now." "Say, Johnny, when you go back, I wish you'd tell him I didn't do it. Cross my heart and hope to die if I did!"