It was that old business of the immovable
mass and the irresistible force. There was Bobbie, ambling gently
through life, a dear old chap in a hundred ways, but undoubtedly a
chump of the first water.
And there was Mary, determined that he shouldn't be a chump. And
Nature, mind you, on Bobbie's side. When Nature makes a chump like
dear old Bobbie, she's proud of him, and doesn't want her handiwork
disturbed. She gives him a sort of natural armour to protect him
against outside interference. And that armour is shortness of memory.
Shortness of memory keeps a man a chump, when, but for it, he might
cease to be one. Take my case, for instance. I'm a chump. Well, if I
had remembered half the things people have tried to teach me during my
life, my size in hats would be about number nine. But I didn't. I
forgot them. And it was just the same with Bobbie.
For about a week, perhaps a bit more, the recollection of that quiet
little domestic evening bucked him up like a tonic. Elephants, I read
somewhere, are champions at the memory business, but they were fools to
Bobbie during that week. But, bless you, the shock wasn't nearly big
enough. It had dinted the armour, but it hadn't made a hole in it.
Pretty soon he was back at the old game.
It was pathetic, don't you know. The poor girl loved him, and she was
frightened. It was the thin edge of the wedge, you see, and she knew
it.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98