"Come drunk. Let her understand what being a tramp means, what your life has been. If she still wants you, I hardly see how I can stop her. That’s only fair, for what does she know about you and your life? You know all about her, what she has done and been and is going to do. Leave her now, this evening. Go on being a tramp and then come to her, at the last of August. Come as a tramp, mind. Don’t let her think that it is a test she is being put to or she will only laugh at it and us and go on wanting you just the same, scorning to be tested, to think that her love could fail. Give her some other excuse for your going. You must see that it is only fair to the little girl to let her see what she is up against." "Yes, I see. I tried to tell her," agreed the Watermelon gloomily. "If she loves you through it all, she can have you, and I suppose I will have to consent. I can afford a penniless son-in-law and I guess an American tramp is preferable to a European noble." "I won’t be penniless," said the Watermelon. "I could work like a nigger for a month and own forty dollars, thirty of which I would owe for board." "That’s just it," declared Bartlett promptly. "You can’t support Billy in the way she is used to being supported, can’t give her the things that have become necessities to her." "I can support her in my own way," said the Watermelon, trying to reason down his own benumbing repentence and humiliation as well as to convince Bartlett of that which he himself knew to be all wrong. "But that isn’t Billy’s way. You couldn’t give her a servant, for instance, and servants to Billy are like chairs to some people, absolutely necessary." "We love each other," said the Watermelon simply. "That’s all right. But you can’t always be sure your love is like elastic and stretchable. Come as a tramp and I will give my consent." Bartlett grew bold, positively convinced that Billy could no longer care when she had once seen the drunken sot, promised as he had grown used to doing on the Street, to do that which he knew he would not have to do. "I will give my consent, if Billy still can care. I know that Billy would be a lot happier with my consent, too, than without it. For, though the modern child has no respect for her parent’s authority, she likes to have her wedding peaceful and conventional." "Can I say good-by to her?" "Yes, but I trust you not to let her know that she is to be put to a test. If you love her, you can see that I am right." "Yes," said the Watermelon, "I love her and will not let her know." He straightened up and pushed his hat farther back, with the slow, inbred languor of the thoroughly lazy man. "I love Billy, and that is why I consent. I tried to make her understand what I am, have been, but I couldn’t." He took a handful of beans from a near-by barrel and let them run slowly through his fingers. "I suppose she will give me the double cross."