‘Who has been married here, my friend?’ said the single gentleman.
‘I have.’
‘You! and to whom in the devil’s name?’
‘What right have you to ask?’ returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top to toe.
‘What right!’ cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit’s mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in contemplation to run away. ‘A right you little dream of. Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor—tut, tut, that can’t be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call her Nell. Where is she?’
As he propounded this question, which Kit’s mother echoed, somebody in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom’s arm.
‘Where is she!’ cried this lady. ‘What news have you brought me? What has become of her?’
The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length he stammered out,
‘I ask you where she is? What do you mean?’
‘Oh sir!’ cried the bride, ‘If you have come here to do her any good, why weren’t you here a week ago?’