"How can I show your charming cousin that I am not the fool she takes me for? must I shoot somebody? That would be too bloody-minded. Must I write a book? Sicken and become interesting? Ah! I have it! I'll get the fever and ague (no hard matter you know here); but then a man looks so unromantic with his teeth, and his hands, and his feet all in motion like a negro dancing 'Juba.' A lady would as soon think of falling in love with a culprit on the gibbet. I shall certainly try what absence will do; but then suppose that I am a bore, and no one entreats me to stay! Your mother might deem it indelicate, under the circumstances, for she certainly sees that I am a lost sinner; then I should be blown, indeed, with all my sins upon my head! without one redeeming quality for the little Bell to dwell upon in my absence. If I had rescued somebody from a watery grave--stopped a pair of runaway horses--saved somebody's life--shot a robber--been wounded myself--should turn out to be some lord's heir in England--had jumped down the Passaic or the Niagara--distinguished myself against the Indians or the Algerines--or even killed a mad dog--it would not be so desperate a case for the hero of a love affair. "But here I am--a poor forlorn somebody, without a single trait of heroism in my composition, or a solitary past deed of the kind to boast of; unless it may be bursting little brass bombs under the tutor's windows in College, or shaving a horse's tail, or one side of a drunken man's whiskers, or laying two drunken fellows at each other's door. Suppose I should get old Tombo, the gardener, into the river by stratagem, merely that I might pull him out again; as he seems to be a universal favourite here. But then suppose I should drown him in these mock heroics? Ah, I see I shall have to remain plain Beverly Randolph all my days! Alas! the days of chivalry are gone! If I could splinter a lance with some of these Sir Hotheads, or Sir Blunderbys, the case might not be so desperate.