"Your mother?" I said.
"No, I didn't mean her just then; but she'd be all right to listen to, too. She can't half speak her mind! No, I meant my fiancy. I've just left her; been there for Sunday."
"Have you been engaged long?" I asked.
He laughed. "No," he said. "That's the point. We only got engaged this year. I'd courted her a long time, but it wasn't till New Year's day that we fixed it up."
"I congratulate you," I said, "and her too. I think she's lucky to have a soldier for her husband. I hope you're both very happy."
"Happy!" he said; "I should think we were. That's what makes me so disgusted with this paper. Look at it."
At last he removed his thumb and showed me a paragraph beginning with the words, "The first interesting engagement of the New Year is that between Captain Dudley Hornby and Lady Marjorie Feilding."
"The 'first'!" he said scornfully. "The 'first'! She and her mother on that," he chuckled, "and my mother to help them! (We live close by). My, I wish I could be there to hear it. Give it me back, please; I must mark it and post it. What a time they'll have!"
I would like to be there too.