I Forbid the Banns! — page 207: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ON VARIETY .N LACE. 197 He clapped Bertha in a good-natured familiar way on the shoulder, and Bertha actually laughed. Julian. Charlton did not laugh. When a man’s blood has been rapidly increasing in temperature until at last it reaches boiling point he does not, as a rule, laugh. ‘Poor old Eric!’’ said Bertha. ‘‘His heart is certainly in the right place. Was it not good-natured of him, Julian?”’ “It was—very good-natured of him,’’ replied Julian quietly. ‘‘Very’’ was not, however, the word with which, in his mind, he qualified the good nature of thisman. ‘‘We cannot stand here for the rest of the afternoon,’’ he con- tinued, opening the drawing room door. ‘‘You had better walk inside, Mr. Vicars.’’ ‘It's a big room,’’ said Mr. Vicars. ‘‘I don’t suppose the smell of a tobacco pipe would be much felt where the ceiling is so high. I’m accustomed to a pipe after meals, and I’ve had a pretty square meal just now, though the what’s-their-names are more dainty than satisfying toa born bushman like I am.”’ : ‘‘Don’t think of such a thing, you big boy,’’ said Bertha. *‘A tobacco pipe in a Louzs Sezze drawing room!”’’ ‘‘Perhaps you might be interested in the stables, Mr. Vicars,’’ remarked Julian in frigid tones that suggested the most cordial inhospitality. ‘“*There are only a few horses now, to be sure, but ki “T’ll tell you what I’ll do, Bertha,’’ said the ex-overseer: ‘‘vou just run and throw on a hat or something, and the two of us will stroll around this run. Iwant tohavea yarn with you about old times. That’s my programme.’’ . Julian Charlton turned away and tapped the barometer that hung beside him. Curiously enough, the index showed — no sign of running down to ‘“‘stormy.”’ ‘‘How could you expect me to go roaming with a bush- man such as you are, in such a costume as this?’’ ‘‘I saw the day, my fine lady,’’ shouted Eric in that fine, EONNIELIOOKS (E(0)