He signified his assent.
“Subject to the Great Reaper,” he said, “I think that I can promise that.”
Then for five minutes we sat in silence, and then, extending my hand to him, I rose to my feet.
Ezekiel Stool, drawn from a portrait once in the possession of the A.D.S.U.
“Ezekiel,” I said, “I am not unobliged to you, and although I could never view such a marriage with enthusiasm, yet I can conceive circumstances in which, as a last resort, it might be my duty to consider it.”
“Precisely,” he said, “and it is for such a contingency that I shall be only too glad, as I have said, to reserve them.”
Then we parted, Ezekiel, as he afterwards told me, to the happy contemplation of our closer friendship, and myself, as I walked home, to the sombre consideration of the possibilities with which I had been presented. I had scarcely been so occupied, however, for ten minutes when I suddenly became aware of the odour of alcohol, and to my infinite horror found myself being embraced by the show-room manager from Paternoster Row.
“Why, ShAugustus,” he said. “Fansheen you.”
Involuntarily I recoiled from him, but he came after me.