"This is silly," said Muriel, trying to get her hand away.
Jack staggered violently, and gripped her hand again.
"Please, Miss Muriel," implored Simms. "I feel sure he is just going to do it."
Jack staggered again, sawed the air with his disengaged hand, and then turned right round and marched for the door, dragging Muriel behind him. The door slammed after them....
* * * * * * * *
There is a little trick of sitting on a chair and picking a pin out of it with the teeth. I started Simms—who was all eagerness to follow the pair, and find out the mysterious force that was drawing them—upon this trick, for Jack is one of my best friends. When Jack and Muriel came back from the billiard-room, and announced that they were engaged, Simms was on his back on the floor with the chair on the top of him—explaining, for the fourth time, that if the thing had not overbalanced at the critical moment he would have secured the object. There is much to be said for this view.
BACHELOR DAYS
THE BUTTER
"You mustn't think I am afraid of my housekeeper. Not at all. I frequently meet her on the stairs, and give her some such order as "I think—if you don't mind—I might have breakfast just a little later—er, yes, about eight o'clock, yes, thank you." Or I ring the bell and say, "I—I—want-my-boots." We both recognise that it is mine to command and hers to obey. But in the matter of the butter I have let things slide, until the position is rapidly becoming an untenable one. Yet I doubt if a man of imagination and feeling could have acted otherwise, given the initial error. However, you shall hear.