The glow of childish transport that came over him when he
reached the nonsense ending - so common in these tales - recalled me
to myself, and I listened attentively while he gabbled with
delighted haste: 'They found the path and I found the puddle. They
were drowned and I was found. If it's all one to me tonight, it
wasn't all one to them the next night. Yet, if it wasn't itself, not
a thing did they lose but an old back tooth ' - or some such
gibberish.
As I led him home through the paths he described to me - it is thus
we get along - lifting him at times over the low walls he is too
shaky to climb, he brought the conversation to the topic they are
never weary of - my views on marriage.
He stopped as we reached the summit of the island, with the stretch
of the Atlantic just visible behind him.
'Whisper, noble person,' he began, 'do you never be thinking on the
young girls?
