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Updated: June 17, 2025
Tottle,’ resumed the lady, glancing at him through one of the eyelet-holes, ‘is a most peculiar and delicate one.’ ‘It is,’ said Mr. Tottle. ‘Our acquaintance has been of so short duration,’ said Miss Lillerton. ‘Only a week,’ assented Watkins Tottle. ‘Oh! more than that,’ exclaimed the lady, in a tone of surprise. ‘Indeed!’ said Tottle.
‘Miss Lillerton’s compliments,’ said Martha, as she delivered it into Tottle’s hands, and vanished. ‘Do you observe the delicacy?’ said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel Parsons. ‘Compliments, not love, by the servant, eh?’ Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn’t exactly know what reply to make, so he poked the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth ribs of Mr. Watkins Tottle.
‘It has been represented to me again and again that this is the course I ought to pursue,’ replied Miss Lillerton, ‘but pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle—pray excuse this embarrassment—I have peculiar ideas on such subjects, and I am quite sure that I never could summon up fortitude enough to name the day to my future husband.’ ‘Then allow me to name it,’ said Tottle eagerly.
The cloth was removed; the ladies soon afterwards retired, and Miss Lillerton played the piano in the drawing-room overhead, very loudly, for the edification of the visitor. Mr. Watkins Tottle and Mr.
‘I should like to fix it myself,’ replied Miss Lillerton, bashfully, but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a third party.’ ‘A third party!’ thought Watkins Tottle; ‘who the deuce is that to be, I wonder!’ ‘Mr. Tottle,’ continued Miss Lillerton, ‘you have made me a most disinterested and kind offer—that offer I accept. Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to—to Mr. Timson?’
‘In a back-kitchen chimney!’ ejaculated Watkins Tottle. ‘How dreadful!’ ‘Yes, it wasn’t very pleasant,’ replied the small host. ‘The fact is, Fanny’s father and mother liked me well enough as an individual, but had a decided objection to my becoming a husband. You see, I hadn’t any money in those days, and they had; and so they wanted Fanny to pick up somebody else.
‘Certainly not,’ replied Parsons. ‘I dare say you wouldn’t mind seeing it in writing, though, in the church register—eh?’ ‘Register! What register?’ inquired the lady gravely. ‘Why, the register of marriages, to be sure,’ replied Parsons, chuckling at the sally, and glancing at Tottle. Mr.
‘Disinterested creature!’ exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border. Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she might possibly alter her opinion on this last point.
Parsons, in a tone which implied that it was of the greatest consequence possible,—directing aside the researches of the boy, who was groping under the table for the bits of broken glass. ‘I presume,’ said Miss Lillerton, ‘that Mr. Tottle is aware of the interest which bachelors usually pay in such cases; a dozen glasses for one is the lowest penalty.’ Mr.
‘Then, sir,’ said Timson, seizing both Tottle’s hands, ‘allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly and cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.’ ‘He thinks I recommended him,’ thought Tottle. ‘Confound these fellows! they never think of anything but their fees.’
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