“Dry-salted him, perhaps?” suggested Lawless.
“The consequence is,” continued Coleman, not heeding the interruption, “he is as rich as Croesus; now Lucy hasn't a penny, and all her family are as poor as rats, so what does he do but go to my father, promises to settle no end of tin on her, and ends by asking him to manage the matter for him. Whereupon the governor sends for Lucy, spins her a long yarn about duty to her family, declares she'll never get a better offer, and winds up by desiring her to accept the dolt forthwith; and Lucy writes to me, poor girl! to say she's in a regular fix, and thinks she'd better die of a broken heart on the spot, unless I can propose any less distressing but equally efficient alternative.”
“What does your governor say? that she'll never have a better offer?” asked Lawless.
“Yes,” replied Freddy, “and, in the common acceptation of the term, I'm afraid it's a melancholy truth.”
“Hum! yes, that'll do,” continued Lawless meditatively. “Freddy, I've thought of a splendid dodge, by which we may obtain the following advantages. Imprimis, selling the governor no end; secundis, insuring me a jolly lark—and 'pon my word I require a little innocent recreation to raise my spirits; and, lastly, enabling you to marry your cousin, and thus end, as the pantomimes always do, with a grand triumph of virtue and true love over tyranny and oppression! So now, listen to me!”
CHAPTER LII — LAWLESS ASTONISHES MR. COLEMAN
“'Now, all your writers do consent that ipse is he; now,
are you not ipse, for I am he?' “'Which he, sir?' “'He,
sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown,
abandon—which is, in the vulgar, leave the society—which,
in the boorish, is company of this female—which, in the
common, is woman—which together is, abandon the society of
this female; or clown.... I will o'errun thee with policy;
therefore tremble, and depart.'”
—As You Like, It.
“AS far as I understand the matter,” said Lawless, nodding sapiently, “the great obstacle to your happiness is the drysalter, and the chief object you desire to attain is his total abolition, eh?”
Coleman assenting to these premises, Lawless continued, “Supposing, by certain crafty dodges, this desirable consummation arrived at, if you could show your governor that you had four or five hundred pounds a year of your own to start with, one of his main objections to your union with this female—young woman would be knocked on the head?”