Standing now above Jasperson, his
proportions seemed even larger than usual. The little dandy in his
smug black garments with his diamond stud gleaming in the ivy-bosomed
shirt (his rings had been given to Miss Birdie), with his features
wilting like the wild pansies in the lapel of his coat, dwindled to an
amorphous streak beneath the keen glance of my burly brother.
"Do you really love her?" said Ajax, in his deepest bass. "Or do you
_fear_ her, Jasperson? Answer honestly."
The small man writhed. "I dun'no'," he faltered at last. "By golly! I
dun'no'."
"Then I do know," replied my brother incisively: "you've betrayed
yourself, Jasperson. You're playing the worm. D'you hear? The
_worm_! I once advised you to wiggle up to the bird, now I tell
you solemnly to wiggle away, before it's too late. I've been a fool,
and so have you. For the past three weeks I've had my eye on you, and
I suspected that you'd fallen a victim to an ambitious and
unscrupulous woman. You've lost weight, man; and you've no flesh to
spare. Marry Miss Dutton, and you'll be a scarecrow within a year, and
require the services of the mortician within two! I got you into this
infernal scrape, and, by Heaven I I'll get you out of it.
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