would go down to the kitchen to have their daily row over the cook's accounts—so at ten I determined to make my escape.
I dressed—reached the ground-floor in safety—kissed a last farewell to Georgina's very long goloshes in the umbrella-stand, and eventually stood free and undetected in the street. I had yet an hour to spare before Bridget would arrive at the church, and I spent this in walking round Euston Square—which can be done in two thousand one hundred paces—and at a quarter to eleven I entered the church. There was no one there but the beadle.
I went up to him and said, "Oh, I beg your pardon, but I've come to be married." At that moment I was clapped on the back by Georgina's two headstrong brothers. My cousins and their father had been paying a visit to a money-lender in Euston Square. They saw me walking round, their curiosity was excited, and they followed me to the church. And so came about one of the most tremendously dramatic situations in Modern History.
"So, sir," said Uncle Sparrow, "you've come to be married?"
"Fire and fury!" said John.
"Zounds and the devil!" said James.
I was equal to the emergency. My natural kindness of heart prevented my admitting the truth to my uncle and my cousins, for I never distress a fellow-creature intentionally (unless she is ugly, and I am engaged to her), so I resorted to one of the most ingenious methods of getting out of a dilemma that I ever heard of. I
