'One moment he's the happiest dog in the world, and the next—well, the next, it's the deuce.'
'But,' I objected, 'not surely without good reason for such a change?'
'Reason? Bosh! The least thing does it.'
I flicked the ash from my cigar.
'It may,' I remarked, 'affect you in this extraordinary way, but surely it is not so with most people?'
'Perhaps not,' George conceded. 'Most people are cold-blooded asses.'
'Very likely the explanation lies in that fact, said I.
'I didn't mean you, old chap,' said George, with a penitence which showed that he had meant me.
'Oh, all right, all right,' said I.
'But when a man's really far gone, there's nothing else in the world but it.'
'That seems to me not to be a healthy condition,' said I.
'Healthy? Oh, you old idiot, Sam! Who's talking of health? Now, only last night I met her at a dance. I had five dances with her—talked to her half the evening, in fact. Well, you'd think that would last some time, wouldn't you?'
'I should certainly have supposed so,' I assented.
'So it would with most chaps, I daresay, but with me—confound it, I feel as if I hadn't seen her for six months!'
