said my Husband, "to put the bones back into his knees again so that he could climb up the steps of his train and fumble some sort of way to his seat without seeming too conspicuous. Whatever religion may do, you know, to starch a man's soul or stiffen his upper lip, he's got to have bones in his knees if he's going to climb up into railroad trains. . . . And our poor young friend here, it would seem, merely mis——"

"Mis—calculated," mused Kennilworth, "how many knees he had."

"Paul wouldn't do it!" flared the Bride.

"Do what?" demanded young Kennilworth.

"Hush!" protested everybody.

"Make a beast of himself—if I died—if I died!" persisted the Bride.

"Pray excuse me for contradicting either your noun or your preposition," apologized my Husband. "But even at its worst I'm quite willing to wager that the only thing in the world poor Allan John started out to 'make' was an oblivion—for— himself."

"An oblivion?" scoffed the Bride.

"Yes—even for one night!" persisted my Husband. "Even for one short little night! . . . Before the horror of 365 nights to the year and God knows how many years to the life—rang on again! Some men really like their wives you know,—some men— so no matter how thin-skinned and weak this desire for oblivion seems to you—" quickened my Husband, "it is at least a——"

"Paul wouldn't!" frowned the Bride.

In the sudden accentuation of strain everybody turned as quickly as possible to poor Paul to decide as cheerfully as seemed compatible with good taste just what that gorgeously wholesome looking specimen of young manhood would or would not do probably under suggested circumstances. Nobody certainly wanted to consider the matter seriously, yet nobody with the Bride's scared eyes still scorching through his senses would have felt quite justified I think in mere shrugging the issue aside.

"No, I don't think Paul—would!" rallied my Husband with commendable quickness. "Not with those eyes! Not with that particular shade of crisp, controlled hair! . . . Complexions like his aren't made in one generation of righteous nerves and digestions! . . . Oh no—! Even in the last ditch the worst thing Paul would do would be to stalk round putting brand new gutters on a brand new house!"