The Complete Short Stories of Charles Dickens: 190+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Чарльз Диккенс

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      ‘Why,’ replied Mr. Watkins Tottle evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame; ‘why—I should certainly—at least, I think I should like—’

      ‘Won’t do,’ said the short gentleman.—‘Plain and free—or there’s an end of the matter. Do you want money?’

      ‘You know I do.’

      ‘You admire the sex?’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘And you’d like to be married?’

      ‘Certainly.’

      ‘Then you shall be. There’s an end of that.’ Thus saying, Mr. Gabriel Parsons took a pinch of snuff, and mixed another glass.

      ‘Let me entreat you to be more explanatory,’ said Tottle. ‘Really, as the party principally interested, I cannot consent to be disposed of, in this way.’

      ‘I’ll tell you,’ replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, warming with the subject, and the brandy-and-water—‘I know a lady—she’s stopping with my wife now—who is just the thing for you. Well educated; talks French; plays the piano; knows a good deal about flowers, and shells, and all that sort of thing; and has five hundred a year, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it, by her last will and testament.’

      ‘I’ll pay my addresses to her,’ said Mr. Watkins Tottle. ‘She isn’t very young—is she?’

      ‘Not very; just the thing for you. I’ve said that already.’

      ‘What coloured hair has the lady?’ inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle.

      ‘Egad, I hardly recollect,’ replied Gabriel, with coolness. ‘Perhaps I ought to have observed, at first, she wears a front.’

      ‘A what?’ ejaculated Tottle.

      ‘One of those things with curls, along here,’ said Parsons, drawing a straight line across his forehead, just over his eyes, in illustration of his meaning. ‘I know the front’s black; I can’t speak quite positively about her own hair; because, unless one walks behind her, and catches a glimpse of it under her bonnet, one seldom sees it; but I should say that it was rather lighter than the front—a shade of a greyish tinge, perhaps.’

      Mr. Watkins Tottle looked as if he had certain misgivings of mind. Mr. Gabriel Parsons perceived it, and thought it would be safe to begin the next attack without delay.

      ‘Now, were you ever in love, Tottle?’ he inquired.

      Mr. Watkins Tottle blushed up to the eyes, and down to the chin, and exhibited a most extensive combination of colours as he confessed the soft impeachment.

      ‘I suppose you popped the question, more than once, when you were a young—I beg your pardon—a younger—man,’ said Parsons.

      ‘Never in my life!’ replied his friend, apparently indignant at being suspected of such an act. ‘Never! The fact is, that I entertain, as you know, peculiar opinions on these subjects. I am not afraid of ladies, young or old—far from it; but, I think, that in compliance with the custom of the present day, they allow too much freedom of speech and manner to marriageable men. Now, the fact is, that anything like this easy freedom I never could acquire; and as I am always afraid of going too far, I am generally, I dare say, considered formal and cold.’

      ‘I shouldn’t wonder if you were,’ replied Parsons, gravely; ‘I shouldn’t wonder. However, you’ll be all right in this case; for the strictness and delicacy of this lady’s ideas greatly exceed your own. Lord bless you, why, when she came to our house, there was an old portrait of some man or other, with two large, black, staring eyes, hanging up in her bedroom; she positively refused to go to bed there, till it was taken down, considering it decidedly wrong.’

      ‘I think so, too,’ said Mr. Watkins Tottle; ‘certainly.’

      ‘And then, the other night—I never laughed so much in my life’—resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons; ‘I had driven home in an easterly wind, and caught a devil of a face-ache. Well; as Fanny—that’s Mrs. Parsons, you know—and this friend of hers, and I, and Frank Ross, were playing a rubber, I said, jokingly, that when I went to bed I should wrap my head in Fanny’s flannel petticoat. She instantly threw up her cards, and left the room.’

      ‘Quite right!’ said Mr. Watkins Tottle; ‘she could not possibly have behaved in a more dignified manner. What did you do?’

      ‘Do?—Frank took dummy; and I won sixpence.’

      ‘But, didn’t you apologise for hurting her feelings?’

      ‘Devil a bit. Next morning at breakfast, we talked it over. She contended that any reference to a flannel petticoat was improper;—men ought not to be supposed to know that such things were. I pleaded my coverture; being a married man.’

      ‘And what did the lady say to that?’ inquired Tottle, deeply interested.

      ‘Changed her ground, and said that Frank being a single man, its impropriety was obvious.’

      ‘Noble-minded creature!’ exclaimed the enraptured Tottle.

      ‘Oh! both Fanny and I said, at once, that she was regularly cut out for you.’

      A gleam of placid satisfaction shone on the circular face of Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he heard the prophecy.

      ‘There’s one thing I can’t understand,’ said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he rose to depart; ‘I cannot, for the life and soul of me, imagine how the deuce you’ll ever contrive to come together. The lady would certainly go into convulsions if the subject were mentioned.’ Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat down again, and laughed СКАЧАТЬ