n?"

"Oh, sir!" again exclaimed the bewildered Jemima.

"That look! I was not then deceived. Oh extend that pity into love! I
lay myself and my fortune at your feet." And here Mr Simon Silky slipped
off the sofa and down upon his knees, overcome partly with love and
partly with intoxication. "Dearest Jemima! say only that you will be
mine?"

"Oh, sir!" once more sighed the blushing maiden, dropping her head upon
the shoulder of her suitor, who acknowledged the movement by snatching a
kiss from her pouting lips.

"Ods! that came twangingly off. I'm afraid we're like to spoil sport
here," exclaimed Mr Slap'emup, who at this moment entered the room, with
Miss Gingerly on his arm.

"Gracious! how very improper!" cried Miss Gingerly, wishing from the
depth of her soul that it had only been her own case.

"What's improper, ma'am?" retorted Silky, turning to her a look of
drunken gravity, and endeavouring, with no little difficulty, to get on
his legs again. "If I choose to kiss this young lady, or this young lady
chooses to kiss me, that's no business of yours, I suppose? 'Have not
saints lips, and holy palmers, too?' as the divine Shakspere says; and
what are lips for, I should like to know, if not to kiss? Don't frown at
me, Miss Graveairs. I'm a man--a man, ma'am, and I shall do just as I
please. Shan't I, Jemima, dear?"

He turned for an answer to his appeal; but the young lady had left the
room.

"Jemima, I say," continued Silky, getting more and more overcome. He
looked around the room; and, finding no trace of the lady, began
chanting in a lackadaisical tone--

'And has she then fail'd in her truth,
The beautiful maid I adore?'

But I don't care that for her!" And he tried to snap his fingers; but
failed in the attempt. "It's an ungrateful world--a vile world."

"Oh, gracious me! let me away," exclaimed Miss Gingerly, in alarm. "He's
certainly tipsy."

"Tipsy--tipsy! Who's tipsy? Let me see her. Woman, woman, to get
yourself into such a state! I'm ashamed of you; I am indeed. But it's
the weakness of the sex.

'Frailty, thy name is woman!'"

This apostrophe was addressed to some visionary female that flitted
before Mr Silky's mental optics, and whom he followed, with his hands
groping before him, with the voice and gesture of Mr Charles Kean
pursuing the airdrawn dagger in the character of Macbeth. "Laugh away;
it's very amusing, isn't it! Nero fiddled while Rome was burning; but I
know better