a screw in his body, and his
hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into
the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned
self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the
concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But a Bridegroom he
designed to be.

"In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in
the year. That's my wedding-day," said Tackleton.

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly
shut; and that the one eye nearly shut was always the expressive eye? I
don't think I did.

"That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling his money.

"Why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the Carrier.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just such another couple.
Just!"

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be
described. What next? His imagination would compass the possibility of
just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.

"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier with
his elbow, and taking him a little apart. "You'll come to the wedding?
We're in the same boat, you know."

"How in the same boat?" inquired the Carrier.

"A little disparity, you know," said Tackleton with another nudge. "Come
and spend an evening with us beforehand."

"Why?" demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality.

"Why?" returned the other. "That's a new way of receiving an invitation.
Why, for pleasure--sociability, you know, and all that."

"I thought you were never sociable," said John in his plain way.

"Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, I see," said
Tackleton. "Why, then, the truth is, you have a--what tea-drinking
people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your
wife. We know better, you know, but----"

"No, we don't know better," interposed John. "What are you talking
about?"

"Well! We _don't_ know better, then," said Tackleton. "We'll agree that
we don't. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to say, as you
have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable
effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I don't think your
good lady's very friendly to me in this matter, still she can't help
herself from falling into my views, for there's a compactness and
cosiness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an
indifferent case. You'll say you'll come?"

"We