"Stop! Quit your fooling! What if somebody should come in?"
"They won't," said Berry, desisting, and stretching himself at ease
in the only chair besides Lemuel's with which the office was
equipped. "It's too late for 'em. Now o'er the one-half world nature
seems dead-ah, and wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep-ah. We
are safe here from all intrusion, and I can lay bare my inmost
thoughts to you, Barker, if I happen to have any. Barker, I'm
awfully glad you're not engaged to either of those girls,--or both.
And it's not altogether because I enjoy the boon companionship of
another unengaged man, but it's partly because I don't think--shall
I say it?"
"Say what?" asked Lemuel, not without some prescience.
"Well, you can forgive the brotherly frankness, if you don't like
it. I don't think they're quite up to you."
Lemuel gave a sort of start, which Berry interpreted in his own way.
"Now, hold on! I know just how you feel. Been there myself. I have
seen the time too when I thought any sort of girl was too good for
Alonzo W., Jr. But I don't now. I think A. W., Jr., is good enough
for the best. I may be mistaken; I was the other time. But we all
begin that way; and the great object is not to keep on that way.
See? Now, I suppose you're in love--puppy love--with that little
thing. Probably the first girl you got acquainted with after you
came to Boston, or may be a sweet survival of the Willoughby
Pastures period.
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