'Twixt love and clubs--oh, dreadful state! A week ago I was boasting that with a few flowers and books, a theatre-party, and a week-end or two all would be over. To-day I know that I have never been in love before; that I have only hovered on the borders of the dismal swamp; that now I am in the mire. My appetite has forsaken me entirely; I find no pleasure in my cigars, and the other day I actually gave up drinking because I believed that it was morally wrong. If this regeneration keeps up I shall become the worst bore in town. The deuce of it is that I find myself in a condition--in an indescribable condition. The nearest approach to a diagnosis of my case is to say that were I again confronted with the possibility of falling in love I should avoid it, but being in love, all the money in the world would not make me change my mood. Curiously, the reverse definition works just as well--I would give everything to be free, but free, would not avoid another capture. Strange! No wonder so many other well-known men have been made fools by women! Why, I find myself doing all kinds of absurd things--then just laugh. Tuesday morning I spent figuring from how many clubs I should have to resign in order to make my income meet the expenses of a wife. It was worse than squaring the circle, for no man is more unfortunate than he who has a fixed income of $20,000 a year, with no business in which to increase it; for sooner or later he will be confronted with a demand that he give up his comfort or his happiness. It is a problem to stagger any well-balanced person. So I am taking long walks, alone, at unheard-of hours, just yesterday appearing on the Avenue at eleven o'clock in the morning. Could I blame Mrs. Timpleton Duff for smiling as she drove by? When I had typhoid they gave me cold baths to reduce the fever. Well, in the last few days I have had enough chills to bring me back to a normal life. Instead, I grow worse, and I see no end, no peace, except in that matrimonial bourne whence so comparatively few men return. Of that I am convinced. It was impressed on me with double force when I dropped in at the Ticktock Club the other afternoon to have a cup of tea. Whom should I find eying me over a paper but Joshua Underbunk, a man for whom I have never cared, since, though a captain of industry, he has not an idea in his head except on pig-iron and pictures. But as there were some things I wanted to know, I was pleasant, and in return he was most affable, principally, I suspect, because he is up for membership in the Cholmondeley Club, where some objection has been raised to him by the High-Church set. After casual remarks on things in general, I said, rather adroitly, "By the bye, I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Underbunk at a house-party last week." "Indeed!" said he, looking rather surprised. "Her company was playing in Boston, I thought."