stress was
in very low spirits, and that he could not exactly answer for the
consequences of any lengthened TETE-A-TETE in the bar, kept himself
obstinately out of her way all the afternoon and evening. In this piece
of generalship he was very much assisted by the great influx of company
into the taproom; for the news of his intention having gone abroad,
there was a perfect throng there all the evening, and much drinking of
healths and clinking of mugs. At length the house was closed for the
night; and there being now no help for it, Mark put the best face he
could upon the matter, and walked doggedly to the bar-door.

'If I look at her,' said Mark to himself, 'I'm done. I feel that I'm
a-going fast.'

'You have come at last,' said Mrs Lupin.

Aye, Mark said: There he was.

'And you are determined to leave us, Mark?' cried Mrs Lupin.

'Why, yes; I am,' said Mark; keeping his eyes hard upon the floor.

'I thought,' pursued the landlady, with a most engaging hesitation,
'that you had been--fond--of the Dragon?'

'So I am,' said Mark.

'Then,' pursued the hostess--and it really was not an unnatural
inquiry--'why do you desert it?'

But as he gave no manner of answer to this question; not even on
its being repeated; Mrs Lupin put his money into his hand, and asked
him--not unkindly, quite the contrary--what he would take?

It is proverbial that there are certain things which flesh and blood
cannot bear. Such a question as this, propounded in such a manner, at
such a time, and by such a person, proved (at least, as far as, Mark's
flesh and blood were concerned) to be one of them. He looked up in spite
of himself directly; and having once looked up, there was no
looking down again; for of all the tight, plump, buxom, bright-eyed,
dimple-faced landladies that ever shone on earth, there stood before him
then, bodily in that bar, the very pink and pineapple.

'Why, I tell you what,' said Mark, throwing off all his constraint in an
instant and seizing the hostess round the waist--at which she was not at
all alarmed, for she knew what a good young man he was--'if I took what
I liked most, I should take you. If I only thought what was best for me,
I should take you. If I took what nineteen young fellows in twenty would
be glad to take, and would take at any price, I should take you. Yes,
I should,' cried Mr Tapley, shaking his head expressively enough, and
looking (in a momentary state of forgetfulness) rather hard at