Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/157

Rh cool instead of in the saucer. We boys who couldn't walk across the floor without feeling that our pants had hiked up till they showed our feet to the knees, and that we were carrying a couple of canvased hams where our hands ought to be, didn't like him; but the girls did. You can trust a woman's taste on everything except men; and it's mighty lucky that she slips up there or we'd pretty nigh all be bachelors. I might add that you can't trust a man's taste on women, either, and that's pretty lucky, too, because there are a good many old maids in the world as it is.

One time or another Chauncey lolled in the best room of every house in our town, and we used to wonder how he managed to browse up and down the streets that way without getting into the pound. I never found out till after I married your Ma, and she told me Chauncey's heart secrets. It really wasn't violating any confidence, because he'd told them to every girl in town.