“Yes,” said I, eagerly but crudely, “my heart’s strained as well. And you’ve gone and clean bowled me. Now put two and two together, Grace. Surely you must see what I mean.” “No, I’ll go to Klondyke if I do,” said Grace, in despair. “Your heart strained--clean bowled. No, I’ll go to Klondyke if I do! Is it a riddle?” “A riddle,” said I, much hurt. “Oh, my dear Grace, if you only knew how serious I am! I’ll own that I’m not expressing myself very clearly. Hang it! a fellow’s not used to this sort o’ thing. I know I’m a blithering ass, you know. Oh, Grace, dash it all! you must see what I mean!” “Blithering ass!” murmured Grace, as if to herself. “You _are_ getting a bit more enlightening, Dimmy.” “No, no,” I said hastily; “you’re on the wrong tack. That’s not what I want you to see. You know! you know!” “Dimmy,” said Grace, with her marvellous blue eyes getting wider, “I shall be downright annoyed with you in a minute. You say I know when I don’t know; and when I do know, you say that I don’t know. If this is a rag, Dimmy, it’s very wicked of you, ’cause my time’s occupied. These jolly averages’ll never get done to-night. Do be a good boy and go. There, I’ve put the Old Man down wrong! Dimmy, I shall be most horribly angry in a minute.” “Oh, drop this bally cricket!” I cried. “Do try to think of serious things a little, Grace; do try to think of what _I’m_ saying. I do wish you’d attend to what a fellow’s saying, and help him out a bit.” “I’d help you out with great pleasure, Dimmy, very great pleasure, I can assure you, Dimmy,” she said, “if I’d only got a boot like Charlie’s.” “Oh, Grace!” I cried, “how obtuse you are!” “That’s it, call me names,” said she. Here a dreadfully painful silence came. It was only disturbed by the aggressive behaviour of my heart and the scratching of Miss Grace’s pencil. Never in my life had I felt such an unmitigated ruffian, and certainly never a more uncompromising idiot. Doesn’t it seem absurd, considering the amount of totally unnecessary things one learns at school--Latin, Greek, and so forth--that the gentlemen of England are utterly untrained in one of the most complex and delicate sciences that ever has to be practised by the human male? Oh, for a few of the most rudimentary hints as to how to conduct a proposal! Lord! what _is_ a fellow to do when the object of his passion is busily occupied with the preparation of cricket averages, and not paying the least attention to his distraught manner, or the gentle hints conveyed in his conversation? There was the wretched Grace, apparently overjoyed at this lull in the proceedings, jotting down figures with a haste that can only be described as feverish, tossing telegrams about and looking really dangerous to talk to. Very encouraging state of affairs, considering that the sum total of my eloquence was spent already. But the Briton in me, after a two minutes’ interval, set doggedly to work once more.