"'Why _I_ should proceed after _this_ fashion. When a pretty woman came to me, I should plant her down in the crucifying chair; open sundry mysterious-looking drawers, spread out a formidable array of instruments under her little nose, take up all the files, and saws, and scrapers, one by one, and hold them up to the light to see if they were ready primed. Then I'd step round behind her chair (getting napkin, basin, and footstool fixed to my satisfaction.) The effect I calculated on being produced, the little blue-eyed victim would turn pale and look deliciously imploring into my face--then I'd use a little 'moral suasion,' as the ministers say--and quiet her nerves. Then follows an examination of her mouth, (I should make a long job of that!) Very likely the light would not be right, and I should have to move her head a little nearer to my shoulder, then it is more than probable her long curls would get twisted round the buttons of my coat; _there'd_ be a web for two to unweave! Then we'd commence _again_; the file in my hand makes an unlucky move against some sensitive tooth,--by that time it is to be hoped she'd be ready to faint, and need something held to her lips! Oh, Fan, my mind is in a state of vibration between _dentistry_ and the _shoe business_!'
"'What do you think of the _clerical_ profession?' said Fan, laughing. '_That_ would give you an opportunity to ask them plump, without any circumlocution or _circumbendibus_, the state of their hearts? You'd be of the Methodist persuasion, of course, and patronize 'Love Feasts.'
"'Not a bit of it. If I went into _that_ line of business, I'd be a Roman Catholic priest, and get up a confession box, and the first exercise of my authority after that would be to get _you_ into a nunnery _somewhere_. I never saw a 'Fanny' yet that wasn't as mischievous as Satan.'
"'The _name_ is infectious, my dear; can't you get it _changed_ for me? Speaking of that, Tom, you know that 'miserable young man' that talked so freely of 'prussic acid and daggers' once on a time? May I die an old maid if he isn't the owner of a pretty little wife and two or three children--he is as fat as a porpoise, merry as a cricket, gay as a lark--don't he sing out to me 'how d'ye do Fan?' in the most _heart-whole_ fashion, as if he never said anything _more_ than that to me all the days of his life! Oh, Tom! _men have died_--and _worms have eaten 'em_--but--_not for love_!'