Amid silence, feeling as wretched as perhaps I have ever felt in my life before or since, I received one from the gracious Miss Sellars, wet and sounding.
“Looks better for it already,” commented the delighted Uncle Gutton. “He'll soon get fat on 'em.”
“Not too many at first,” advised the watery-eyed young man. “Looks to me as if he's got a weak stomach.”
I think, had the meal lasted much longer, I should have made a dash for the street; the contemplation of such step was forming in my mind. But Miss Sellars, looking at her watch, declared we must be getting home at once, for the which I could have kissed her voluntarily; and, being a young lady of decision, at once rose and commenced leave-taking. Polite protests were attempted, but these, with enthusiastic assistance from myself, she swept aside.
“Don't want any one to walk home with you?” suggested Uncle Gutton. “Sure you won't feel lonely by yourselves, eh?”
“We shan't come to no harm,” assured him Miss Sellars.
“P'raps you're right,” agreed Uncle Gutton. “There don't seem to be much of the fiery and untamed about him, so far as I can see.”
“'Slow waters run deep,'” reminded us Aunt Gutton, with a waggish shake of her head.
“No question about the slow,” assented Uncle Gutton. “If you don't like him—” observed Miss Sellars, speaking with dignity.
“To be quite candid with you, my girl, I don't,” answered Uncle Gutton, whose temper, maybe as the result of too much cold pork and whiskey, seemed to have suddenly changed.