“Come, Clark, speak up—it’s your affair—”
“Oh, you manage it,” said Clark. “You’ve got the ‘gift of gab.’ I never had it.”
“I never in all my born days saw so bold a man as timid with a girl as you are.”
“He’s doin’ what I shouldn’t like to try on,” said John.
“See here,” said my tyrant, sternly, “this gentleman has very kindly consented to take charge of you. He has even gone so far as to consent to marry you. He will actually make you his wife. In my opinion he’s crazy, but he’s got his own ideas. He has promised to give you a tip-top wedding. If it had been left to me,” he went on, sternly, “I’d have let you have something very different, but he’s a soft-hearted fellow, and is going to do a foolish thing. It’s lucky for you though. You’d have had a precious hard time of it with me, I tell you. You’ve got to be grateful to him; so come up here, and give him a kiss, and thank him.”
So prepared was I for any horror that this did not surprise me.
“Do you hear?” he cried, as I stood motionless. I said nothing.
“Do as I say, d—n you, or I’ll make you.”
“Come,” said Clark, “don’t make a fuss about the wench now—it’ll be all right. She’ll like kissing well enough, and be only too glad to give me one before a week.”
“Yes, but she ought to be made to do it now.”