So, although still of a twitter with amazement at Miss Jessimina's announcement, I considered it the better part of valour to corroborate it with promptitude, rather than incur the shocking punches and kicks of numerous athletic young commercials; and, upon hearing the piece of good news, Mrs Mankletow exploded into lachrymation, saying that she was divested of narrow-minded racial colour prejudices, and had from the first regarded me as a beloved son.
Then, blessing me, and calling me her Boy, she clasped me against her bosom, where, owing to the exuberant redundancy of her ornamental jetwork, my nose and chin received severe laceration and disfigurement, which I endured courageously, without a whimper.
When I have grown more accustomed to being the lucky dog, I shall commence cockahooping, and become merry as a grig. At the present moment I am only capable of wonderment at the unpremeditated rapidity with which such solemn concerns as betrothals are knocked off in this country.
But if, as Macbeth says, such jobs are to be done at all, then it is well they were done quickly.
