“It doesn't seem to me,” said Aunt Gutton from the other end of the table, “that gentlemen are as keen on marrying nowadays as they used to be.”
“Got to know a bit about it, I expect,” sounded the small, shrill voice of the unseen Joseph.
“To my thinking,” exclaimed a hatchet-faced gentleman, “one of the evils crying most loudly for redress at the present moment is the utterly needless and monstrous expense of legal proceedings.” He spoke rapidly and with warmth. “Take divorce. At present, what is it? The rich man's luxury.”
Conversation appeared to be drifting in a direction unsuitable to the occasion; but Jarman was fortunately there to seize the helm.
“The plain fact of the matter is,” said Jarman, “girls have gone up in value. Time was, so I've heard, when they used to be given away with a useful bit of household linen, maybe a chair or two. Nowadays—well, it's only chaps wallowing in wealth like Clapper there as can afford a really first-class article.”
Mr. Clapper, not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy, possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him: the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct with all the characteristics of genuine delight.
“Give and take,” observed the maternal Sellars, so soon as Mr. Clapper's roar had died away; “that's what you've got to do when you're married.”
“Give a deal more than you bargained for and take what you don't want—that sums it up,” came the bitter voice of the unseen.
“Oh, do be quiet, Joe,” advised the stout young lady, from which I concluded she had once been the lean young lady. “You talk enough for a man.”
“Can't I open my mouth?” demanded the indignant oracle.