"Larks?" repeated Mr. Russell, with an injured air. "I'm a teetotaler, and it's my duty to look after brothers that go astray."
He produced a pledge-card from his waistcoat-pocket and, smoothing it out on the table, pointed with great pride to his signature. The date of the document lay under the ban of his little finger.
"I'd just left the Temperance Hall," continued the zealot. "I've been to three meetings in two days; they'd been talking about the new barmaid, and I guessed at once what brother Vickers would do, an' I rushed off, just in the middle of brother Humphrey's experiences—and very interesting they was, too—to save him. He was just starting his second pot, and singing in between, when I rushed in and took the beer away from him and threw it on the floor."
"I wasn't singing," snarled Mr. Vickers, endeavouring to avoid his daughter's eye.
"Oh, my dear friend!" said Mr. Russell, who had made extraordinary progress in temperance rhetoric in a very limited time, "that's what comes o' the drink; it steals away your memory."
Miss Vickers trembled with wrath. "How dare you go into public-houses after I told you not to?" she demanded, stamping her foot.
"We must 'ave patience," said Mr. Russell, gently. "We must show the backslider 'ow much happier he would be without it. I'll 'elp you watch him."
"When I want your assistance I'll ask you for it," said Miss Vickers, tartly. "What do you mean by shoving your nose into other people's affairs?"
"It's—it's my duty to look after fallen brothers," said Mr. Russell, somewhat taken aback.
"What d'ye mean by fallen?" snapped Miss Vickers, confronting him fiercely.