"Oh ladies, dear ladies, so you equip your faithful knight for the fray; accept my grateful thanks, my very grateful thanks," sighed the vicar.
"So pleased you like them, dear Mr. Dodd," chorused the stockbroker's daughters.
The triumphs of decorative millinery were passed from hand to hand.
"They never made these," muttered old Mrs. Wurzel to herself, as she critically held one up to the light. "The minxes," she inwardly added. Mrs. Wurzel was quite right; they had been supplied, regardless of cost, from Messrs. Rochet and Stole's well-known establishment.
"Ah," purred Lucy Warrender, "the ladies used to arm their knights with their own fair hands in the days of chivalry."
The parson laughed. "And have the days of chivalry departed, ladies?" he said, protruding his head, much as the unconscious aldermanic turtle is said to protrude his, when awaiting the fatal stroke.
Conny Sleek, the younger and bolder of the two, looked at her sister; the elder girl nodded maliciously.
Conny stepped smilingly forward, and proceeded to affix the band around the vicar's massive throat.
Fat Jack Dodd was in his glory; "Jumbo" was in the seventh heaven of bliss. A smile of beatitude spread over his enormous countenance during the process. But it suddenly disappeared, as a sharp slam of the door announced the sudden departure of his indignant wife, the outraged Cecilia. Will it ever dawn on Mrs. Dodd's mind, that parsons, even married parsons, are but men?