"About the first thing I was told," said Lodloe, "was that you were a good-hearted fellow, but the fact that your father was an Irishman had deprived your character of ballast." "Umph," said Lanigan; "there are some people who are all ballast. I don't mind that." "And then I heard that, although you were a wild and irresponsible youth, people generally expected that as you grew older you would gradually accumulate ballast; but instead of that you had steadily gone downhill from the moment of your birth." "Now, then," said Lanigan, "I suppose I have no right to ask you, but I would like very much to know who said that." "I don't object in the least to telling you," said Lodloe; "it is fitter that you should know it than that I should know it. That was a quoted opinion of Miss Calthea Rose." "Good for you," said Lanigan; "you'd be death to the members of a scandal-monger society. You would break up the business utterly." "To this Mr. Petter remarked," said Lodloe, "that he thought in many ways you had improved very much, but he was obliged to admit that he could never think of anything that you had done which was of the least benefit to yourself or anybody else." "Upon my word," cried Lanigan, "that's a pretty wide sweep for old Petter. I shall have to rub up his memory. He forgets that I helped him to make the plans for this house. And what did Mrs. Cristie say about me?" "She said she thought it was a great pity that you did not apply yourself to something or other." "She is right there," said Beam, "and, by George! I'll apply myself to her. However, I don't know about that," he continued. "What else did Calthea say?" "One remark was that having proved false to every friend you had here you had no right to return." "That means," said Mr. Beam, "that having promised at least five times to marry her, I never did it once." "Were you really engaged to her?" asked Lodloe. "Oh, yes," said the other; "it seems to me as if I had always been engaged to her. Born that way. Sort of an ailment you get used to, like squinting. When I was a youngster, Calthea was a mighty pretty girl, a good deal my senior, of course, or I wouldn't have cared for her. As she grew older she grew prettier, and I was more and more in love with her. We used to have quarrels, but they didn't make much difference, for after every one of them we engaged ourselves again, and all went on as before. But the time came when Calthea kept on being older than I was, and didn't keep on being pretty and agreeable. Then I began to weaken about the marriage altar and all that sort of thing, but for all that I would have been perfectly willing to stay engaged to her for the rest of my life if she had wished it, but one day she got jealous, kicked up a tremendous row, and away I went."