Part 46 (2/2)
”d.i.c.k! If you don't be quiet, I'll never forgive you!”
”Now, look here.” d.i.c.k a.s.sumed an aggrieved tone. ”Am I supposed not to talk at all? Is this house run on the silent system? I might just as well be having dinner in a deaf and dumb asylum.”
”Talk sensibly then,” said his sister patronisingly, ”and we'll listen to you with pleasure.”
”We! Oh, it's reached that stage, has it: plural! 'M very well. Let's take up a serious subject: horribly serious. Have you lunatics decided when your two throbbing hearts are going to be merged into one; when you are to be married?”
”d.i.c.k! Don't you want--let me pa.s.s you some more vegetables!”
”Don't stop his thirst for information,” interposed Masters quietly.
”He's got to be best man, so he may as well know. It is settled that we are to be married by special licence on New Year's Day.”
”Oh, Prince Charlie!” she cried. ”I never said--indeed I didn't----”
”No, dear,” he replied calmly. ”I know you did not. But you said that that woman I made love to on the boat--what was her name?--Amy--pa.s.s the sauce, d.i.c.k--alleged that I said it rested with me, so far as the naming of the day was concerned.”
”How can you----”
”It occurred to me that that was a capital idea. I am not one of those superior persons; am never above taking a hint. I know I have had--thanks to you--the most unhappy end of a year. By way of compensation I am going--thanks to you again--to have a most happy beginning of one.”
d.i.c.k viewed the consternation displayed on his sister's face to the accompaniment of a broad grin on his own, said:
”That's right! Start quarrelling now, even before you are tied up!
Goodness knows what it will be like after, when you are sentenced to--I mean when you are linked for life. Miserable wretches! You have my sincerest sympathy; all my pity.”
”It takes two to make a quarrel.”
Prince Charlie uttering the aphorism. Then with a smile, holding out his hand to Mabel, he continued:
”You agree with me, don't you, darling? Just by your action convince this beardless youth that we are in accord about the first of January--if we are to be married on that day, put your hand in mine.”
She hesitated a moment, perhaps her brother's derisive laugh helped to her action: she put it right there.
”There's one thing about this affair--having long been an acute sufferer from my headstrong sister's temper,” said d.i.c.k, grinning all over his face--”about which I am distinctly displeased.”
”You are going to make one of your terrible jokes, d.i.c.k!” she said. ”I can see it in your face!”
”Oh, let him run loose,” interposed Masters. ”It's Christmas time, you know. What's the joke? If it's going to give us pain, out with it--as the boy said to the dentist.”
”If you labour over one of your usual atrocious puns, d.i.c.k,” warned his sister, ”I'll throw you down and pummel you black and blue!”
”I was merely going to observe,” said her brother, regardless of the threat, ”that I was glad that at length you had found your master!”
He had to howl for mercy before she let him go.
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