"I have none," replied Gingham.
"Nor are you, I apprehend, a married man?"
"There, alas, you are right again," said Gingham; "but what has that to do with it?"
"Your wife, or your sisters, if you had any, would have told you that you have a very crooked nose."
"Well, but," said Gingham, "there's my mother. My dear mother never told me that my nose was crooked."
"Your mother, probably, is totally unconscious of the fact; and, should she hear any one else assert such a thing, would deny it most strenuously."
"Nay, but," said Gingham, "though I have neither sister nor wife, and supposing my dear mother to be blind to my personal defects, I have—in short, Mr Y—, before I left London, I took a tender leave of her whom I hope to persuade, on my next return from the Peninsula, to accept the hand and the heart of a Gingham. She did not tell me that my nose was crooked. She mentioned various obstacles to our union; but she never mentioned that."
"Then," said I, "depend upon it, she means to have you. And depend upon this, too; she will tell you your nose is crooked when you have made her Mrs Gingham, if she does not tell you so before."
"As to my walking sideways," said Gingham, "that's a palpable fiction."
"Here," said I, "come to this extremity of the room, and place yourself opposite the glass." He came, and placed himself accordingly.