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Then I went to the ship to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before.

There was McMann, who ran up a single bar-room bill of thirty-eight thousand dollars; and Jimmie the Rough, who spent one hundred thousand a month for four months in riotous living, and then fell down drunk in the snow one March night and was frozen to death; and Swiftwater Bill, who, after spending three valuable claims in an extravagance of debauchery, borrowed three thousand dollars with which to leave the country, and who, out of this sum, because the lady-love that had jilted him liked eggs, cornered the one hundred and ten dozen eggs on the Dawson market, paying twenty-four dollars a dozen for them and promptly feeding them to the wolf-dogs.

Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City.

We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me, he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her. "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me.

'Jake, it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now. "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann, I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went on the wings of love.

But the girl had no idea how to obtain one of those vehicles, which she had been accustomed to see driving about with a certain awe, but without the hope of ever being able to do more than admire them from a distance, unless, indeed, she should have the great good fortune of going to a funeral, when perhaps she might even ride in one, as did little Sally McMann of the next court, when her mother died.

"As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer.

You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect. I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann.

"Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'hôtes about the middle.

It was two blocks but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann! "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore, he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City I may. But I'll just think a bit first. And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space.