"Poor Harry!" said Seddon.
"He is deserving of your sympathy," said Toney. "Look! he is now approaching her with the awe and timidity of a man about to converse with a goddess, such as we used to read of in the classic hexameters of Ovid or Virgil. Oh, dea certa! It won't do, Tom! it won't do!"
"What won't do?"
"For a man to let a woman see that he is dead in love with her. 'What careth she for hearts when once possessed?' Not a fig, Tom! not a fig. Carry your love about you like a concealed weapon. Don't let her know anything about it until you pop the question. Pop it at her when she don't expect it, and she will fall into your arms as if she had received a pistol-shot,—
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes,
But not too humbly, or she will despise
Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes,
and, turning her back on you, as Imogen has done now on Harry Vincent, will walk off on the arm of some fellow like Sam Perch."
"Sam Perch? Do you mean the tall youth with a freckled face and a head of hair so fiery red that it looks like a small edition of a burning bush? What a remarkable head!"
"It is a celebrated head. There was once a lawsuit about that head, and I was counsel for the defendant."