"Oh, yes. I'll honour your toast, I'll drink it," he replied, suiting the action to the word. "And now I'll follow it up by what you little expect, and that's a speech."
"All right, make a start, you are in the chair; but be brief, for goodness' sake. What is the text?"
"The text is, Do not flirt with Miss Denis."
"Oh, and pray why not, if she is pretty, and agreeable, and appreciative?"
"You know what I told you this very evening. She is a mere school-girl, an inexperienced child, she is Denis's one ewe lamb, she is to be his companion, the prop of his old age; if you have any sense of chivalry, spare her."
"Spare her!" ejaculated Mr. Quentin with a theatrical gesture of his hand. "One would think I was a butcher, or the public executioner!"
"I know," proceeded Dr. Parks, "your proclivities for tender whisperings, bouquet-giving, and note-writing, in short the whole gamut of your attentions, and that they never mean anything, but too many forlorn maidens have learnt to their cost, you most agreeable, but evasive young man," nodding towards his host with an air of pathetic expostulation.
"I say, come now, you know this is ridiculous," exclaimed Mr. Quentin, pushing his chair back as he spoke. But Dr. Parks was in the vein for expounding on his friend's foibles, and not to be silenced.
"You know as well as I do your imbecile weakness for a pretty face, and that you cannot resist making love to every good-looking girl you see, until a still better-looking drives her out of your fickle heart."
"Go on, go on," cried his victim; "you were a loss to the Church."