| Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth, |
| —a |
| fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely |
| centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, |
| it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he |
| really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week |
| for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon |
| bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. |
| For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about |
| bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the |
| rupee, and the true standards of exchange. |
| "Suppose, |
| " he cried with feeble violence, |
| "that all the debts in the world were |
| called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted upon, |
| —what under |
| our present conditions would happen then?" |
| I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he |
| jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it |
| impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and |
| bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting. |
| At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All that |
| evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a |
| forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind. |
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