"Come, Power, pull me through, like a good fellow,--pull me through, without doing anything to hurt the girls' feelings." "Well, we'll see about it," said he,--"we'll see about it in the morning; but, at the same time, let me assure you, the affair is not so easy as you may at first blush suppose.

These worthy people have been so often 'done'-- to use the cant phrase--before, that scarcely a _ruse_ remains untried.

It is of no use pleading that your family won't consent; that your prospects are null; that you are ordered for India; that you are engaged elsewhere; that you have nothing but your pay; that you are too young or too old,--all such reasons, good and valid with any other family, will avail you little here.

Neither will it serve your cause that you may be warranted by a doctor as subject to periodical fits of insanity; monomaniacal tendencies to cut somebody's throat, etc.

Bless your heart, man, they have a soul above such littlenesses! They care nothing for consent of friends, means, age, health, climate, prospects, or temper.
Firmly believing matrimony to be a lottery, they are not superstitious about the number they pitch upon; provided only that they get a ticket, they are content." "Then it strikes me, if what you say is correct, that I have no earthly chance of escape, except some kind friend will undertake to shoot me." "That has been also tried." "Why, how do you mean ?" "A mock duel, got up at mess,--we had one at Malta.