gh the curtains and, surveying
me with a cold and basilican eye, did demand my intentions.

Nor can I tell what I should have responded, seeing that I had acted
from momentary impulsiveness and feminine encouragement, had not Miss
JESSIMINA, with ready-made female wit, answered for me that it was all
right, and that we were the engaged couple.

But her mother expressed an ardent desire to hear my _viva voce_
corroboration of this statement, informing me that she was but a poor
weak widow-woman, but that, if it should appear that I was merely the
giddy trifler of her daughter's young, artless affections, it would be
her dolesome duty to summon instantaneously every male able-bodied
inmate of her establishment, and request them to inflict deserved
corporal chastisement upon my person!

So, although still of a twitter with amazement at Miss JESSIMINA'S
announcement, I considered it the better part of valour to corroborate
it with promptitude, rather than incur the shocking punches and kicks of
numerous athletic young commercials; and, upon hearing the piece of good
news, Mrs MANKLETOW exploded into lachrymation, saying that she was
divested of narrow-minded racial colour prejudices, and had from the
first regarded me as a beloved son.

Then, blessing me, and calling me her Boy, she clasped me against her
bosom, where, owing to the exuberant redundancy of her ornamental
jetwork, my nose and chin received severe laceration and disfigurement,
which I endured courageously, without a whimper.

When I have grown more accustomed to being the lucky dog, I shall
commence cockahooping, and become merry as a grig. At the present moment
I am only capable of wonderment at the unpremeditated rapidity with
which such solemn concerns as betrothals are knocked off in this
country.

But if, as _Macbeth_ says, such jobs are to be done at all, then it is
well they were done quickly.

XIII

_Drawbacks and advantages of being engaged. Some Meditations in a
Music-hall, together with notes of certain things that Mr Jabberjee
failed to understand._

My preceding article announced the important intelligence of my
betrothal, in which I was then too much the neophyte to express any very
opinionated judgment as to the pros or cons of my approaching
_benediction_ as a _Benedick_ (if I may be allowed a somewhat humorous
pun).

_L'appetit vient en mangeant_, and I am blessing my stars more fervidly
every day for the lucky wi