Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/122

THE VIZIER OF THE in getting married," said Mrs. Crowder. "Did thee ever stay an old bachelor any length of time?"

Crowder laughed. Such questions from his wife amused him very much.

"I was thinking of changing the subject," said he, "and was about to tell you something which had not anything to do with wives and marriages. I thought you might be tired of that sort of thing."

"Not at all," said she, quickly; "that 's just what I want to hear."

"Very well," answered he; "I will give you a little instance of one of my failures in love-making.

"It was long before my visit to Empress Woo; in fact, it was about eleven hundred years before Christ, and I was living in Syria, where I was teaching school in the little town of Timnath. I became very much interested in one of the girls of my class. She was a good deal older than any of the others; in fact, she was a young woman. She had a bright mind, and was eager to learn, and I naturally became interested in her; and in the course of time she pleased