He looked up in spite of himself directly; and having once looked up, there was no looking down again; for of all the tight, plump, buxom, bright-eyed, dimple-faced landladies that ever shone on earth, there stood before him then, bodily in that bar, the very pink and pineapple.
'Why, I tell you what,' said Mark, throwing off all his constraint in an instant and seizing the hostess round the waist--at which she was not at all alarmed, for she knew what a good young man he was--'if I took what I liked most, I should take you.

If I only thought what was best for me, I should take you.

If I took what nineteen young fellows in twenty would be glad to take, and would take at any price, I should take you.

Yes, I should,' cried Mr Tapley, shaking his head expressively enough, and looking (in a momentary state of forgetfulness) rather hard at the hostess's ripe lips.

'And no man wouldn't wonder if I did!' Mrs Lupin said he amazed her.