"Sir!"
"I only said she had been christened, and no stint of the water, that was all, madam; but I perfectly understand you. Mrs. Lovett has gone to the christening of some one of those sweet little innocents, all perfume and flabbiness, that take one's heart completely by storm. Ah, my dear madam, when one looks at the slumbering infant, how one feels an irresistible desire to smother it."
"Lor, sir!"
"With soft kisses, my dear madam. Only fancy me now a baby!"
Todd made so awful a contortion of visage contingent upon this supposition that poor Mrs. Stag, in the nervous condition which the whole adventure had thrown her into, nearly fainted right away. Indeed, the only thing that recovered her was hearing her visitor say—
"I am really very thirsty to-day. How do you feel, madam?"
These were delightful words.
"Oh, sir," she said, "how very odd. I am thirsty likewise."
"Well, that is remarkable," said Todd. "Now, my dear madam, I don't make a common thing of saying as much to anybody, but you, who are a lady evidently of refined taste and intellectual capabilities, I am sure, will understand me, and make allowances for my feelings when I say that I prefer to anything else—gin!"
"You don't mean it, sir?"