" I took out my notebook.
"You remember that night of the Amateur Theatricals, got up by the
White Hussars, when the lights suddenly went out all over the
house?"
"Yes," I replied, "I heard about it."
"Well, I had gone down there that evening with the determination of
proposing to Mary Millikens the first chance that offered. She sat
just in front of me, her sister Jane next, and her mother, smart
Widow Millikens,--who was a bit larky on her own account, you
remember,--the next on the bench. When the lights went out and the
panic and tittering began, I saw my chance! I leaned forward, and
in a voice that would just reach Mary's ear I said, 'I have long
wished to tell you how my life is bound up with you, dear, and I
never, never can be happy without you'--when just then there was a
mighty big shove down my bench from the fellows beyond me, who were
trying to get out. But I held on like grim death, and struggled
back again into position, and went on: 'You'll forgive my taking a
chance like this, but I felt I could no longer conceal my love for
you,' when I'm blest if there wasn't another shove, and though I'd
got hold of her little hand and had a kind of squeeze in return, I
was drifted away again and had to fight my way back. But I managed
to finish, and said, 'If the devotion of a lifetime will atone for
this hurried avowal of my love for you, let me hope for a
response,' and just then the infernal lights were turned on, and
there I was holding the widow's hand and she nestling on my
shoulder, and the two girls in hysterics on the other side.
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