“Yes, he is a man. Do you know what I am going to do? I shall invite him to Elmington. Uncle Tom will like him. He says he is fond of hunting, and this is just the time for that; and he will be strong enough soon. Suppose we go up to-morrow, before I leave town, and invite him jointly. You will be down for the Christmas holidays, you know. By the way, I hope he will accept?” “I am quite sure of it. He has betrayed an unaccountable interest in Leicester County on every occasion that I have alluded to it, notwithstanding an obvious effort to appear indifferent. He has a way of throwing out innocent, careless little questions about the county and the people that has puzzled me not a little. Who the deuse _is_ he?” “Roll into that bed! it is too late for conundrums. Here goes for the light!” And he blew it out. “Jack!” said he, about half an hour afterwards; “Jack, are you asleep?” “H’m?” “Are you asleep?” “H’m? H’m? Confound it, _yes_!” “No, you’re not!” “Well, I _was_!” And I groaned. “Jack, I suppose Uncle Tom will have his usual Christmas party of girls and young men at Elmington this Christmas?” “S’pose so, umgh!” “I say—” “Don’t! Don’t! Those are my ribs! Good Lord, man! you don’t know how sleepy I am. What on earth are you talking about?” “Do you know what girls Uncle Tom is going to have to spend Christmas with us this winter?” “And you woke me up to ask me such a question as that? Thunder! And you see him to-morrow evening, too! Oh, I understand,” said I, being at last fully awake, and I burst out laughing. “You want me to say something about Alice with the merry-glancing hazel eyes.” “About whom? Alice? That’s absurd,—perfectly absurd! Why, she thinks me an idiot because I don’t jabber like one of you lawyers. All women do. Unless you gabble, gabble, gabble, you are a fool. They are all alike. A woman is always a woman; a man may be a philosopher.” “My dear boy, your anxieties are misplaced.” “Who spoke of anxieties?” “Don’t you—a philosopher—know that talkative girls prefer taciturn men? I am perfectly certain that Alice thinks your silence admirable,—dotes on it, in fact.” “Jack-Whack,” said Charley, rising up in bed and—rare sight—though I felt rather than saw or heard it—shaking with laughter, “you are the most immeasurable, the most unspeakable, the most—” Down came a pillow on my head. Down it came again and again as I attempted to rise. We grappled, and for a few minutes no two school-boys could have had a more boisterous romp. “Now just look at this bed,” said Charley, out of breath; “see what you have done!” And he fell back exhausted, as well with the struggle as from his unwonted laughter. “We have not had such a tussle since I used to tease you as a boy. Whew! Let’s go to sleep now.” “She’s a bewitching creature.” “Idiot!” said Charley, turning his back to me with a laugh, and settling himself for the night. “Poor fellow! Well, he got me to pronounce her name, at any rate, by his manœuvring.”