. . .Yardsley (with a convulsive gasp). Bob? Jennie! You—er—you misun—(Jennie, with a smile of joy and an ecstatic glance at Yardsley, dances from the room to attend the door. Yardsley throws himself into a chair.) Well, I'll be teetotally—Awh! It's too dead[10] easy proposing to somebody you don't know you are proposing to. What a kettle of fish this is, to be sure! Oh, pshaw! that woman can't be serious. She must know I didn't mean it for her. But if she doesn't, good Lord! what becomes of me? (Rises, and paces up and down the room nervously. After a moment he pauses before the glass.) I ought to be considerably dishevelled by this. I feel as if I'd been drawn through a knot-hole—or—or dropped into a stone-crusher—that's it, a stone-crusher—a ten-million horse-power stone-crusher. Let's see how you look, you poor idiot.

[As he is stroking his hair and rearranging his tie he talks in pantomime at himse. . . Read More