The Political Economist sank back into his chair. "I don't quite know," he added simply, "but she's going to be some tired girl. Whatever else she may or may not be, she's got to be a tired girl." "A tired girl?" scoffed the Poet. "That's no kind of a girl to marry. Choose somebody who's all pink and white freshness. That's the kind of a girl to make a man happy." The Political Economist smiled a bit viciously behind his cigar. "Half an hour ago," he affirmed, "I was a beast just like you. Good Heavens! Man," he cried out suddenly, "did you ever see a girl cry? Really cry, I mean. Not because her manicure scissors jabbed her thumb, but because her great, strong, tyrant, sexless brain had goaded her poor little woman-body to the very cruelest, last vestige of its strength and spirit. Did you ever see a girl like that Miss Gaudette upstairs--she's the Artist, you know, who did those cartoons last year that played the devil itself with 'Congress Assembled'--did you ever see a girl like _that_ just plain thrown down, tripped in her tracks, sobbing like a hurt, tired child? Your pink and white prettiness can cry like a rampant tragedy-queen all she wants to over a misfitted collar, but my hand is going here and now to the big-brained girl who cries like a child!" "In short," interrupted the Poet, "you are going to help--Miss Gaudette sail her boat?" "Y-e-s," said the Political Economist. "And so," mocked the Poet, "you are going to jump aboard and steer the young lady adroitly to some port of your own choosing?" The older man's jaws tightened ominously. "No, by the Lord Almighty, that's just what I am not going to do!" he promised. "I'm going to help her sail to the port of her own choosing!" The Poet began to rummage in his mind for adequate arguments. "Oh, allegorically," he conceded, "your scheme is utterly charming, but from any material, matrimonial point of view I should want to remind myself pretty hard that overwrought brains do not focus very easily on domestic interests, nor do arms which have tugged as you say at 'sheets' and 'tillers' curve very dimplingly around youngsters' shoulders." The Political Economist blew seven mighty smoke-puffs from his pipe. "That would be the economic price I deserve to pay for not having arrived earlier on the scene," he said quietly. The Poet began to chuckle. "You certainly are hard hit," he scoffed. "Political Economy Gone to rhyme with Hominy! It's an exquisite scheme!" "It's a rotten rhyme," attested the Political Economist, and strode over to the mantelpiece, where he began to hunt for a long piece of twine.