MISS P.—Poor John! it is not I who am going to—that is, it's Mary, the school-room maid.
MILLIKEN.—Eternal blazes! Have you turned Mormon, John Howell, and are you going to marry the whole house?
JOHN.—I made a hass of myself about Miss Prior. I couldn't help her being l—l—lovely.
KICK.—Gad, he proposed to her in my presence.
JOHN.—What I proposed to her, Cornet Clarence Kicklebury, was my heart and my honor, and my best, and my everything—and you—you wanted to take advantage of her secret, and you offered her indignities, and you laid a cowardly hand on her—a cowardly hand!—and I struck you, and I'd do it again.
MILLIKEN.—What? Is this true? [Turning round very fiercely to K.]
KICK.—Gad! Well—I only—
MILLIKEN.—You only what? You only insulted a lady under my roof—the friend and nurse of your dead sister—the guardian of my children. You only took advantage of a defenceless girl, and would have extorted your infernal pay out of her fear. You miserable sneak and coward!
KICK.—Hallo! Come, come! I say I won't stand this sort of chaff. Dammy, I'll send a friend to you!
MILLIKEN.—Go out of that window, sir. March! or I will tell my servant, John Howell, to kick you out, you wretched little scamp! Tell that big brute,—what's-his-name?—Lady Kicklebury's man, to pack this young man's portmanteau and bear's-grease pots; and if ever you enter these doors again, Clarence Kicklebury, by the heaven that made me!—by your sister who is dead!—I will cane your life out of your bones. Angel in heaven! Shade of my Arabella—to think that your brother in your house should be found to insult the guardian of your children!