Have you frightened her away?"
"She's been _swept_ away on a flood of my eloquence," said Ronnie
sadly. "But in the wrong direction; and after I'd bought enough
pomatum from her to grease the keel of a battleship, and enough soap
to wash it all off again. Good soap it is too, me lad; lathers well if
you soak it in hot water overnight."
"How did you come to lose her?" asked Jim, steering the conversation
out of commercial channels.
"The loss is hers," said Ronnie; "I wore holes in my tunic leaning
over the counter talking to her, and I made about as much progress as
a Peace Conference. I got soap instead of sympathy and scent instead
of sentiment. However, she must have got used to me, because one day
she asked if I would translate an English letter she'd received into
French.
"'Now's your chance to make good,' I thought, language being my
strong suit; but I felt sick when I found it was a love-letter from
a presumptuous blighter at Calais, who signed himself 'Your devoted
Horace.' Still, to make another opportunity of talking to her, I
offered to write it out in French. She sold me a block of letter-paper
for the purpose, and I went home and wrote a lifelike translation.
"She gave me a dazzling smile and warm welcome when I took it in, but
on the balance I didn't feel that I'd done myself much good.
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