He fancies I'm a fool, and that I'm wasting my time and trouble.

I mean him to stick to that notion.

For, you see, in a thing of this kind there's always a chance of other people cutting in and spoiling a man's game.

Of course, that advertisement I read to you was seen by other men besides me, and may have been taken up.

My hope is that whoever has taken it up has gone in for the female branch, and got himself snowed up under a heap of documentary evidence about the Judsons.