Consider his position, you faint-hearted and self-pitying young men
who think you have a tough row to hoe just because, when you pay
your evening visit with the pound box of candy under your arm, you
see the handsome sophomore from Yale sitting beside her on the
porch, playing the ukulele. If ever the world has turned black to
you in such a situation and the moon gone in behind a cloud, think
of George Bevan and what he was up against. You are at least on the
spot. You can at least put up a fight. If there are ukuleles in the
world, there are also guitars, and tomorrow it may be you and not
he who sits on the moonlit porch; it may be he and not you who
arrives late. Who knows? Tomorrow he may not show up till you have
finished the Bedouin's Love Song and are annoying the local birds,
roosting in the trees, with Poor Butterfly.
What I mean to say is, you are on the map. You have a sporting
chance. Whereas George... Well, just go over to England and try
wooing an earl's daughter whom you have only met once--and then
without an introduction; whose brother's hat you have smashed
beyond repair; whose family wishes her to marry some other man: who
wants to marry some other man herself--and not the same other man,
but another other man; who is closely immured in a mediaeval castle
.
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