"Hello Pop! Come along and I'll give you the time of your life"! and by God he went with her, and that patient Griselda waiting for him in his second home, not to mention the wife of his bosom, at home (where she played a stiff Bridge every afternoon and never bothered her head about her foolish matrimonial partner). Yes, he went to the new rifle-range and heaven knows what lie he invented for the benefit of his mistress. The affair only proves that any woman who can give to an old man the illusion of virility, he will not only marry her, but he will wear her on his heart of hearts; become her slave, in fact. Sex dies hard in us, and despite popular belief, it is the last of the passions, pushing out avarice and gluttony, which pair of entertaining passions are supposed to illuminate the dusty lonesome years of a man's existence. Goethe married his cook, a stout country wench who drank herself into her grave in the august presence of her husband-poet. And all those old women titled and otherwise who marry coachmen, gardeners and grooms, husky young fellows--do they do this for intellectual companionship? The darky woman who said when asked as to her sex emotions: "I'se over eighty. You've got to ask some lady older than me, illustrates that sex fights as long as it can. The original Adam in us. That de Gourmont theory, Ulick, is a horrible idea; sex is hideous if you study it. Let the boys and girls keep their illusions and don't let them believe old Schopenhauer and his instinct of the species dictating their destiny"--"For the sake of sanity, Alfred, shut your trap and let's go home. Wake up, Bell. There's a fresh wife waiting you," said Ulick, glad to get away. "Which wife?" sleepily inquired Bell. "It seems as if a crowd of men can't end the evening without talking sex," grumbled Ulick. "I'm sick of sex." "So are we all," Stone assented, "because sex is a sickly thing. It's not health and conservation, but destruction, disease, death." Ulick fairly ran from him when they reached the street. Sex and damnation! he said between his teeth. * * * * *