You never can tell what woman will or won't do." An old and forgotten bit of mental machinery began to set up a ditter-datter in Cutty's brain.

Marry Kitty?
Make a settlement, and then give her her freedom?
Rot! Girls of Kitty's calibre were above such expediencies.

He tried to resurrect his interest in the drums of jeopardy, which he might now appropriate without having to shanghai his conscience.

The clitter-clatter smothered it; indeed, this new racket upset and demoralized the well-ordered machinery of his thinking apparatus as applied daily.

Marry Kitty! "I'm old enough to be her father." "What's that to do with it so long as convention is satisfied ?" Cutty was so shaken and confused that he missed the tragic irony of the voice.