"Of course they should, Q. E. D.," said Jim Fellows, touching the gas with a match, and sending a flare of light upon our conference. "But come, now, behold the last novelty of the season," said he, tossing two cards of invitation. "This is for us, as sons of the press and recording angels, to be present at Wat Sydney's grand blow-out next Tuesday. All the rank and fashion are to go. It is to be very select, and there are people who would give their eye-teeth for these cards, and can't get 'em. How do ye say, Old Man of the Mountain, will you go?" "No," said Bolton; "not my line." "Well, at all events, Hal has got to go. I promised the fair Alice that I'd bring him if I had to take him by the hair." I had a great mind to decline. I thought in my heart it was not at all the wisest thing for me to go; but then, _Amare et sapere vix Deo_--I had never seen Sydney, and I had a restless desire to see him and Eva together--and I thought of forty good reasons why I should go. CHAPTER XXXII. THE GAME OF CROQUET. Now I advise all serious, sensible individuals who never intend to do anything that is not exactly most reasonable and most prudent, and who always do exactly as they intend, not to follow my steps on the present occasion, for I am going to do exactly what is _not_ to be recommended to young gentlemen in my situation, and certainly what is not at all prudent. For if a young man finds himself without recall, hopelessly in love with one whose smiles are all for another, his best way is to keep out of her society, and in a course of engrossing business that will leave him as little time to think of her as possible. I had every advantage for pursuing this course, for I had a press of writing upon me, finishing up a batch of literary job-work which I wished to get fairly out of the way so that I might give my whole energies to Bolton in our new enterprise. In fact, to go off philandering to a croquet party up the North River was a sheer piece of childish folly, and the only earthly reason I could really give for it was the presence of a woman there that I had resolved to avoid. In fact I felt that the thing was so altogether silly that I pretended to myself that I was impregnably resolved against it, and sat myself down in Bolton's room making abstracts from some of his books, knowing all the while that Jim would seek me out there and have his moral fish-hook fast in my coat collar, as in truth he did. "Come, come, Hal," he said, bursting in, "I promised the divinest of her sex to bring you along." "Oh nonsense, Jim! it's out of the question," said I. "I've got to get this article done."