“Quite right,” he agreed; “I respect your judgment, sir. I want Mrs. B. to drop his acquaintance; but she says he belongs to the hot nubbless, whatever that is. Why, sir, that Frenchman haunts me like a flea. Everything I eat tastes of frogs! And then Tim’s subscriptions--five hundred dollars in one week! Why, sir, that would make him a life member and director of the Bible Society and the Tract Society and the Foreign Missions!” and the poor man fell to polishing himself again with his piratical handkerchief. “I can’t go to look after them before next week,” he continued, “if then. You see, I’ve got a little operation in flour. It’ll pay subscriptions, get him on the corn exchange, and Budlong is himself again. But it’s dull music staying in town. I’m at the Astor. Everybody’s away and there’s no peaches,” and old Bud, who had been working hard all his days, and now was more than willing to lead a life of jolly quiet, went off excessively disquieted. “It’s the old story,” thought Ira, as he closed the door behind his friend. “I’m sorry for him. This is a case to put in the scale against Tootler. But it demands a whole cityful of Budlongs to over-balance one righteous man like Tommy and his family. Mrs. Tootler almost revives my faith in women, and I had thought that gone forever after that experience which nearly made my life a ruin. “Rather a well-built ruin, though,” he thought, glancing at the mirror, “and especially sound in the treasure-vaults. I would not quarrel with my experience for making me the man I have become, were it not that my isolation of bitter distrust in the one I most trusted has secluded me from all the chances of common happiness. And yet there are others sharing the same exile, bearing a heavier burden, who present a brave face to the world, even a cheerful one--for instance, Granby--married in a freak of boyish generosity to a vulgar, drunken termagant! Suppose I had fallen into the same mistake? Suppose I had married Sally Bishop; is it likely that I should have learnt to control the old Ira of my nature?