Supposing, besides, that you possessed a rich uncle who said that on the day of your wedding he would make over to you fifty thousand in Government three per cents? Hard, wasn't it? Suppose that you were earning about two thousand a year, and that the struggle to keep up smart appearances was a keen one. Wouldn't you have been eager to marry, especially the girl you loved? A man can not buy flowers twice a week, dine before and take supper after the theater twice a week, belong (and pay dues and house-accounts) to a country club, a town club and keep respectable bachelor apartments on two thousand ... and save anything. And suppose the girl was independently rich? Heigh-ho! I find that a man needs more money in love than he does in debt. This is not to say that I was ever very hard pressed; but I hated to pay ten dollars "on account" when the total was only twenty. You understand me, don't you? If you don't, somebody who reads this will. Of course, the girl knew nothing about these things. A young man always falls into the fault of magnifying his earning capacity to the girl he loves. You see, I hadn't told her yet that I loved her, though I was studying up somebody on Moral and Physical Courage for that purpose. And now it was all over! I did not care so much about my uncle's gold-bonds, but I did think a powerful lot of the girl. Why, when I recall the annoyances I've put up with from that kid brother of hers!... Pshaw, what's the use? His mother called him "Toddy-One-Boy," in memory of a book she had read long years ago. He was six years old, and I never think of him without that jingle coming to mind: "Little Willie choked his sister, She was dead before they missed her. Willie's always up to tricks. Ain't he cute, he's only six!" He had the face of a Bouguereau cherub, and mild blue eyes such as we are told inhabit the countenances of angels. He was the most innocent-looking chap you ever set eyes on. His mother called him an angel; I should hate to tell you what the neighbors called him. He lacked none of that subtile humor so familiar in child-life. Heavens! the deeds I could (if I dared) enumerate. They turned him loose among the comic supplements one Sunday, and after that it was all over. Hadn't he emptied his grandma's medicine capsules and substituted cotton? And hadn't dear old grandma come down stairs three days later, saying that she felt much improved? Hadn't he beaten out the brains of his toy bank and bought up the peanut man on the corner? Yes, indeed! And hadn't he taken my few letters from his sister's desk and played postman up and down the street? His papa thought it all a huge joke till one of the neighbors brought back a dunning dressmaker's bill that had lain on the said neighbor's porch. It was altogether a different matter then. Toddy-One-Boy crawled under the bed that night, and only his mother's tears saved him from a hiding.