ff 'ome with me."

Mr. Kybird gave a warning cough. "Go easy, Teddy," he murmured.

"And don't you cough at me," said the irritated Mr. Silk, "because it
won't do no good."

Mr. Kybird subsided. He was not going to quarrel with a son-in-law who
might at any moment be worth ten thousand pounds.

"Isn't he mad?" inquired the amazed Mr. Nugent.

"Cert'nly not," replied Mr. Kybird, moving aside to let his daughter
pass; "no madder than you are. Wot d'ye mean, mad?"

Mr. Nugent looked round in perplexity. "Do you mean to tell me that
Teddy and Amelia are married?" he said, in a voice trembling with
eagerness.

"I do," said Mr. Kybird. "It seems they've been fond of one another all
along, and they went up all unbeknown last Friday and got a license and
got married."

"And if I see you putting your 'and on 'er shoulder ag'in" said Mr. Silk,
with alarming vagueness.

"But suppose she asks me to?" said the delighted Mr. Nugent, with much
gravity.

[Illustration: "'But suppose she asks me to?' said the delighted
Mr. Nugent, with much gravity."]

"Look 'ere, we don't want none o' your non-sense," broke in the irate
Mrs. Kybird, pushing her way past her husband and confronting the
speaker.

"I've been deceived," said Mr. Nugent in a thrilling voice; "you've all
been deceiving me. Kybird, I blush for you (that will save you a lot of
trouble). Teddy, I wouldn't have believed it of you. I can't stay here;
my heart is broken."

"Well we don't want you to," retorted the aggressive Mrs. Kybird. "You
can take yourself off as soon as ever you like. You can't be too quick
to please me."

Mr. Nugent bowed and walked past the counter. "And not even a bit of
wedding-cake for me," he said, shaking a reproachful head at the heated
Mr. Silk. "Why, I'd put you down first on my list."

He paused at the door, and after a brief intimation that he would send
for his effects on the following day, provided that his broken heart had
not proved fatal in the meantime, waved his hand to the company and
departed. Mr. Kybird followed him to the door as though to see him off
the premises, and gazing after the receding figure swelled with
indignation as he noticed that he favoured a mode of progression which
was something between a walk and a hornpipe.

Mr. Nugent had not been in such spirits since his return to Sunwich, and,
hardly able to believe in his good fortune, he walked on in a state of
growing excitement until he was