You've got to listen to chaps that you don't know.

Why, coming home on my bicycle the other day there was an awful row between some infernal 'sprocket' and the 'ball bearings' of the machine, and I never knew before there were such things in the whole concern." I thought I had got at his secret, and said carelessly: "Then I suppose this was the reason why you broke off your engagement with Miss Millikens ?" "Not at all," he said coolly.

"Nothing to do with it.

That is quite another affair.

It's a very queer story; would you like to hear it ?" "By all means." I took out my notebook.
"You remember that night of the Amateur Theatricals, got up by the White Hussars, when the lights suddenly went out all over the house ?" "Yes," I replied, "I heard about it." "Well, I had gone down there that evening with the determination of proposing to Mary Millikens the first chance that offered.