"To preserve a fiddlestick!" said my adored Dorothy. And, rising, she confronted me, a tinted statuette of decision. "Now, Frank," says she, "I would like to know the meaning of this nonsense."
And thereupon, for the second time, I recounted the dreadful and huddled action of the night.
When I had ended, "The first thing," says she, "is to let Grandmother out of that room. And the second is to show me the Parson." This was done; the Dowager entered in an extremity of sulkiness, and the Parson, on being pointed out, lowered his eyes and intensified his complexion.
"As I anticipated," says my charmer, "you are, one and all, a parcel of credulous infants. 'Tis a parson, indeed, but merely the parson out of Vanbrugh's _Relapse_; only last Friday, sir, we heartily commended your fine performance. Why, Frank, the man is one of the play-actors."
"I fancy," Mr. Vanringham here interpolates, "that I owe the assembled company some modicum of explanation. 'Tis true that at the beginning of our friendship I had contemplated matrimony with our amiable Marchioness, but, I confess, 'twas the lady's property rather than her person which was the allure. And reflection dissuaded me; a legal union left me, a young and not unhandsome man, irrevocably fettered to an old woman; whereas a mock-marriage afforded an eternal option to compound the match--for a consideration--with the lady's relatives, to whom, I had instinctively divined, her alliance with me would prove distasteful. Accordingly I had availed myself of my colleague's skill [Footnote: I witnessed this same Quarmby's hanging in 1754, and for a burglary, I think, with an extraordinary relish.--F.A.] in the portrayal of clerical parts rather than resort to any parson whose authority was unrestricted by the footlights. And accordingly--"
"And accordingly my marriage," I interrupted, "is not binding?"
"I can assure you," he replied, "that you might trade your lawful right in the lady for a twopenny whistle and not lose by the bargain."
"And what about my marriage?" says the Marchioness--"the marriage which was never to be legalized?--'twas merely that you might sell me afterward, like so much mutton, was it, you jumping-jack--!"
But I spare you her ensuing gloss upon this text.