a nasty knock, of course, for Gentleman. He knew as well as I did what it would mean if Jerry was to lead home a blushing bride through that front door. It would be outside into the cold, hard world for the bachelor friends. Gentleman sees that quick, and his jaw drops. I goes on. 'All the time,' I says, 'that you're talking away of an evening Jerry's seeing visions of a little woman sitting in your chair. And you can bet we don't enter into them visions. He may dream of little feet pattering about the house,' I says, 'but they aren't ours; and you can 'ave something on that both ways. Look alive, Gentleman,' I says, 'and think out some plan, or we might as well be padding the hoof now.'
"Well, Gentleman did what he could. In his evening discourses he started to give it to Woman all he knew. Began to talk about Delilahs and Jezebels and Fools-there-was and the rest of it, and what a mug a feller was to let a female into 'is cosy home, who'd only make him spend his days hooking her up, and his nights wondering how to get back the blankets without waking her. My, he was crisp! Enough to have given Romeo the jumps, you'd have thought. But, lor! It's no good talking to them when they've got it bad.
An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|The Strand Magazine (Volume 40).djvu/105}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
"'Gentleman,' I says, 'what's going to be done about this?'"
"A few days later we caught him with the goods, talking in the road to a girl in a pink dress.
"I couldn't but admit that Jerry had picked one right from the top of the basket. This wasn't one of them languishing sort wot sits about in cosy corners and reads story-books, and don't care what's 'appening in the home so long as they find out what became of the hero in his duel with the Grand Duke. She was a brown, slim, wiry-looking little thing. You know. Held her chin up and looked you up and down with eyes the colour of Scotch whisky, as much as to say, 'Well, what about it?' You could tell without looking at her, just by the feel of the atmosphere when she was near, that she had as much snap and go in her as Jerry Moore hadn't, which was a good bit. I knew, just as sure as I was standing there on one leg, that this was the sort of girl who would have me and Gentleman out of that house about three seconds after the clergyman had tied the knot.
"Jerry says, 'These are my friends, Miss Tuxton—Mr. Bailey and Mr. Roach. They are staying with me for a visit. This is Miss Jane Tuxton,' he says to us. 'I was just going to see Miss Tuxton home,' he says, sort of wistful. 'Excellent,' says Gentleman. 'We'll come too.' And we all goes along. There wasn't much done in the way of conversation. Jerry never was one for pushing
Vol. xl.—13.
