had been given a thin-shelled pullet's egg to carry on my palm
from Equatorial Africa to Hoboken. Yes, she became for me, as it
were, the subject of a bet--the trophy of an athlete's achievement,
a parsley crown that is the symbol of his chastity, his soberness,
his abstentions, and of his inflexible will. Of intrinsic value as a
wife, I think she had none at all for me. I fancy I was not even
proud of the way she dressed.

But her passion for Jimmy was not even a passion, and, mad as the
suggestion may appear, she was frightened for her life. Yes, she
was afraid of me. I will tell you how that happened. I had, in the
old days, a darky servant, called Julius, who valeted me, and
waited on me, and loved me, like the crown of his head. Now,
when we left Waterbury to go to the "Pocahontas", Florence
entrusted to me one very special and very precious leather grip.
She told me that her life might depend on that grip, which
contained her drugs against heart attacks. And, since I was never
much of a hand at carrying things, I entrusted this, in turn, to
Julius, who was a grey-haired chap of sixty or so, and very
picturesque at that. He made so much impression on Florence that
she regarded him as a sort of father, and absolutely refused to let
me take him to Paris. He would have inconvenienced her.

Well, Julius was so overcome with grief at being left behind that
he must needs go and drop the precious grip. I saw red, I saw
purple. I flew at Julius. On the ferry, it was, I filled up one of his
eyes; I threatened to strangle him. And, since an unresisting negro
can make a deplorable noise and a deplorable spectacle, and,
since that was Florence's first adventure in the married state, she
got a pretty idea of my character. It affirmed in her the desperate