"Go 'way f'om here--you is an' you know you is--dthat's the reason you carry yo' head so high." (He little knew the true reason.) "An' if you hadn't, all you got to do is to walk in yonder--up yonder (with a toss of his head in the direction of Miss Poole's home), an' hang up your hat, and den you ain got nuthin' to do but jus' write yo' checks." I laughed at Jeams's idea of the situation, and of old Poole's son-in-law's position. But it was rather a bitterer laugh than he suspected. To soothe my conscience and also to draw him out, I said, though I did not then really think it possible: "Why, she's going to marry Peck." Jeams turned around and actually spat out his disgust. "What, dthat man!" Then, as he looked at me to assure himself that I was jesting, and finding a shade less amusement in my countenance than he had expected, he uttered a wise speech. "Well, I tell you, Cap'n--if dthat man gits her he ought to have her, 'cause he done win her an' you ain't know how to play de game. You done discard de wrong card." I acknowledged in my heart that he had hit the mark, and I laughed a little less bitterly, which he felt--as did Dix, lying against my foot which he suddenly licked twice. "An' I'll tell you another thing--you's well rid of her. Ef she likes dthat man bes', let him have her, and you git another one. Der's plenty mo,' jes' as good and better, too, and you'll meck her sorry some day. Dthat's de way I does. If dey wants somebody else, I let's 'em have 'em. It's better to let 'em have 'em befo' than after." When Jeams walked out of my room, he had on a suit which I had not had three months, and a better suit than I was able to buy again in as many years. But he had paid me well for it. I had in mind his wise saying when I faced Lilian Poole without a cent on earth, with all gone except my new-born resolution and offered her only myself, and as I walked out of her gate I consoled myself with Jeams's wisdom. When I left Miss Poole I walked straight home, and having let nobody know, I spent the evening packing up and destroying old letters and papers and odds and ends; among them, all of Lilian Poole's letters and other trash. At first, I found myself tending to reading over and keeping a few letters and knickknacks; but as I glanced over the letters and found how stiff, measured, and vacant her letters were as compared with my burning epistles, in which I had poured out my heart, my wrath rose, and I consigned them all to the flames, whose heat was the only warmth they had ever known.