Woodville is one of those fellows who will insist on telling me their most private matters,—even to what they owe their washerwomen for the ruination of their shirts. Why, goodness alone can tell,—heaven knows I am not sympathetic.
‘Don’t be an idiot!—you don’t know what I’m suffering!—I’m as nearly as possible stark mad.’
‘That’s all right, old chap,—I’ve seen you that way more than once before.’
‘Don’t talk like that,—you’re not a perfect brute!’
‘I bet you a shilling that I am.’
‘Don’t torture me,—you’re not. Atherton!’ He seized me by the lapels of my coat, seeming half beside himself,—fortunately he had drawn me into a recess, so that we were noticed by few observers. ‘What do you think has happened?’
‘My dear chap, how on earth am I to know?’
‘She’s refused me!’
‘Has she!—Well I never!—Buck up,—try some other address,—there are quite as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.’
‘Atherton, you’re a blackguard.’