"I don't want none o' your talk," said his disappointed friend. "If you ain't careful I'll tell Selina about you going up to her papers."
The smile faded from Mr. Vickers's face. "Don't make mischief, Bill," he said, uneasily.
"Well, don't you try and make fun o' me," said Mr. Russell, ferociously. "Taking the pledge is 'ard enough to bear without having remarks from you."
"I didn't mean them to be remarks, Bill," said the other, mildly. "But if you tell about me, you know, Selina'll see through your little game."
"I'm about sick o' the whole thing," said Mr. Russell, desperately. "I ain't 'ad a drink outside o' my own house for pretty near a fortnight. I shall ask Selina to-morrow night, and settle it."
"Ask her?" said the amazed Mr. Vickers. "Ask 'er what?"
"Ask 'er to marry me," said the other, doggedly.
Mr. Vickers, thoroughly alarmed, argued with him in vain, the utmost concession he could wring from the determined Mr. Russell being a promise to give him a hint to get out of the way.
"I'll do that for my own sake," he said, frankly. "I can do it better alone, and if your old woman is in you get her out too. Ask 'er to go for a walk; that'll please Selina. I don't know what the gal does want. I thought turning teetotaler and setting a good example to you would do the trick, if anything would."
Mrs. Vickers's utter astonishment next evening, when her husband asked her to go for a walk, irritated that gentleman almost beyond endurance. Convinced at last that he was not joking, she went upstairs and put on her bonnet, and then stood waiting for the reluctant Mr. Vickers with an air of almost bashful diffidence.