I Forbid the Banns! — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE VORACITY OF THE SHARK. 75 undoubtedly a fascinating topic; but Charlton was heartily tired of it, and he surprised the Nuisance greatly by declar- ing that he must go below for another cigar, Charlton had spent an hour and a half away from Bertha in addition to the twenty-nine years of his life which he had passed subjected to the same privation, and yet when he found himself within his cabin, instead of refilling his cigar case and hurrying to her side, he seated himself on the side of his bunk, and looked out of his port over the rippling waste of waters. The bell had rung for tiffen before he stirred from this uncomfortable position ; and before he had changed his linen coat the saloon was ringing with the laughter and the pleasant chatter of the passengers who had descended for one of the pleasantest of the many pleasant meals aboard an ocean steamship. He could hear the voice of Bertha answering the boyish seriousness of Charlie Barham, It was clear that the mid- shipman, who was being conveyed to England on urgent private affairs from the gunboat Sluebotile at Simon’s Bay, had, in accordance with the best traditions associated with the British navy, not shrunk from the duty of making Miss Lancaster feel herself to be among friends aboard the Carnarvon Castle. The girl was standing leaning with her hands behind her against her seat at the table, and the handsome lad was finishing his account of some incidents that had lately come under his personal observation, illustrating in the clearest possible way the extraordinary voracity of sharks in the Indian Ocean. | No story with a shark incidentally introduced can fail to be interesting. If told by a midshipman in her Majesty’s navy who possesses a lively imagination, and who is at the same time quite devoid of all scruples, such a story may frequently become enthralling. EONMICLYOOlKS EC)