PODB. It's enough for _me_--especially when you make yourself so doosid amiable as this. You needn't alarm yourself--you won't have any more of my company than I can help; only I _must_ say, for two fellows who came out to do a tour _together_, it's---- [_Walks away, grumbling._ _Later. The band has finished playing_; MISS TROTTER _is on the bench with_ CULCHARD. MISS T. And you mean to tell me you've never met anybody since you even cared to converse with? CULCH. (_diplomatically_). Does that strike you as so very incredible? MISS T. Well, it strikes me as just a _little_ too thin. I judged you'd go away, and forget I ever existed. CULCH. (_with tender reproach_). How little you know me! I may not be an--er--demonstrative man, my--er--feelings are not easily roused, but, once roused, well--(_wounded_)--I think I may claim to possess an ordinary degree of constancy! MISS T. Well, I'm sure I _ought_ to feel it a vurry high compliment to have you going round grieving all this time on _my_ account. CULCH. Grieving! Ah, if I could only _tell_ you what I went through! (_Decides, on reflection, that the less he says about this the better._) But all that is past. And now may I not expect a more definite answer to the question I asked at Bingen? Your reply then was--well, a little ambiguous. MISS T. I guess it's got to be just about as ambiguous now--there don't seem anything I _can_ say. There's times when I feel as if it might be sort of elevating and improving to have you shining around; and there's other times when I suspect that, if it went on for any considerable period, likely I'd weaken. I'm not just sure. And I cann't ever make myself believe but what you're disapproving of me, inside of you, most all the time! CULCH. Pray dismiss such--er--morbid misgivings, dear Miss Trotter. Show that you do so by accepting me as your guide and companion through life! [Illustration: "HOW LITTLE YOU KNOW ME."] MISS T. My! but that sounds like a proposal? CULCH. I intended it to bear that--er--construction. It _is_ a proposal--made after the fullest reflection. MISS T. I'm ever so obliged. But we don't fix things quite that way in my country. We want to feel pretty sure, first, we shann't get left. And it don't seem to me as if I'd had opportunities enough of studying your leading characteristics. I'll have to study them some more before I know whereabouts I am; and I want you to understand that I'm not going to commit myself to anything at present. That mayn't be sentiment, but I guess it's common-sense, anyway. And all _you_'ve got to do is, just to keep around, and kind of impress me with a conviction that you're the vurry brightest and best man in the entire universe, and I don't believe you'll find much difficulty about _that_. And now I guess we'll go into _table d'hote_--I'm just as _ravenous_!