"Never; except, perhaps, a few lines with tickets for the theatre, or something of that kind."
"Have you copies of your correspondence?"
"Has Mrs. Dal ever been present; or, as the French say, has she assisted at any of your tender interviews with the young ladies?"
"I'm not aware that one kisses a girl before mamma."
"I'm not speaking of that; I merely allude to an ordinary flirtation."
"Oh, I suppose she has seen me attentive."
"Very awkward, indeed! There is only one point in your favor; for as your attentions were not decided, and as the law does not, as yet, permit polygamy--"
"Come, come, you know I never thought of marrying."
"Ay, but they did. What do you wager but that the major asks your intentions, as he calls it, the moment he hears the transport has arrived?"
"By Jove! now you remind me, he asked this evening, when he could have a few minutes' private conversation with me to-morrow, and I thought it was about some confounded military chest or sea-store, or one of his infernal contrivances that he every day assures me are indispensable; though, if every officer had only as much baggage as I have got, under his directions, it would take two armies, at least, to carry the effects of the fighting one."
"Poor fellow!" said he, starting upon his legs; "what a burst you've made of it!" So saying, he began in a nasal twang,--
"I publish the banns of marriage between Charles O'Malley, late of his Majesty's 14th Dragoons, and ------ Dalrymple, spinster, of this city--"
"I'll be hanged if you do, though," said I, seeing pretty clearly, by this time, something of the estimation my friends were held in. "Come, Power, pull me through, like a good fellow,--pull me through, without doing anything to hurt the girls' feelings."
"Well, we'll see about it," said he,--"we'll see about it in the morning; but, at the same time, let me assure you, the affair is not so easy as you may at first blush suppose. These worthy people have been so often 'done'--to use the cant phrase--before, that scarcely a _ruse_ remains untried. It is of no use pleading that your family won't consent; that your prospects are null; that you are ordered for India; that you are engaged elsewhere; that you have nothing but your pay; that you are too young or too old,--all such reasons, good and valid with any other family, will avail you little here. Neither will it serve your cause that you may be warranted by a doctor as subject to periodical fits of insanity; monomaniacal tendencies to cut somebody's throat, etc. Bless your heart, man, they have a soul above such littlenesses! They care nothing for consent of friends, means, age, health, climate, prospects, or temper. Firmly believing matrimony to be a lottery, they are not superstitious about the number they pitch upon; provided only that they get a ticket, they are content."