Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/339

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LETTERS TO HIS SON

"Perhaps I do; yes, I'm afraid I do. How far are you committed to Miss Churchill?"

Jack cheered right up. "I'm all right there, at least. She hasn't answered."

"Then you've asked?"

"Why, so I have; at least she may take it for something like asking. But I don't care; I want to be committed there; I can't live without her; she's the only——"

I saw that he was beginning to foam up again, so I shut him off straight at the spigot. Told him to save it till after the ceremony. Set him down to my desk, and dictated two letters, one to Edith Curzon and the other to Mabel Moore, and made him sign and seal them, then and there. He twisted and squirmed and tried to wiggle off the hook, but I wouldn't give him any slack. Made him come right out and say that he was a yellow pup; that he had made a mistake; and that the stuff was all off, though I worded it a little different from

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