He didn't look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands stuck down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed to be.
"In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in the year. That's my wedding-day," said Tackleton.
Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the expressive eye? I don't think I did.
"That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling his money.
"Why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the Carrier.
"Ha ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just such another couple. Just!"
The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be described. What next? His imagination would compass the possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.
"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. "You'll come to the wedding? We're in the same boat, you know."
"How in the same boat?" inquired the Carrier.
"A little disparity, you know;" said Tackleton, with another nudge. "Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand."