The occurrence is still remembered in Shorehaven, very largely on account of the extreme height and niggardly circumference of Mr. Samuel Clark’s top-hat, and for the remarkable exhibition of agility given by the best man, Mr. Joseph Tridge, out in the High Street, towards the close of the festivities.
Mr. Horace Dobb, an old friend of the bridegroom and bride, attended the ceremony, in company with Mrs. Horace Dobb. Many people subsequently expressed the opinion that Mr. Dobb took the affair far too seriously for a mere guest.
It was just before Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lock were setting forth on their honeymoon that the newly fledged husband summoned Mr. Dobb aside.
“You must be sure to come and see us in our little ’ome when we come back, ’Orace,” said Mr. Lock, fondly. “I’m sure no one’s got a better right among our pals to sit on them tables and chairs—”
“All right!” growled Mr. Dobb. “Don’t rub it in!”
“I just want to tell you something, though. You know that motto of yours what you’ve got painted on a board hanging in your shop? ‘Strictly business,’ it says, don’t it? Well, mottoes is like curses—they come home to roost sometimes!”
“Meaning?” loftily queried Mr. Dobb.
“Why, I felt so sorry for Looie when she come down to the old ‘Jane Gladys’ to ask for you, and you’d jilted her, that I—I got sort of writing to her to cheer her up; and before long we got engaged. Oh, four or five months ago it must have been, though we didn’t tell anybody! You see, I’d got an idea up my sleeve, and I was only waiting till my wages was raised.”
“Then—then—then really she was hengaged to you when she come to Shore’aven?” queried Mr. Dobb, in a stifled voice.
“She was. Why, it was me who managed the whole thing. It was me who wrote and told her to come to Shore’aven. It was me who told her what to say to Sam and Joe.”