"You'll never get through to-morrow if you can't do an easy thing like
that," was the laughing remark.
Tots looked up.
"Oh, rot! The bridegroom has no business to suffer with the jumps.
That's the best man's privilege. He does all the work, and has all the
responsibility. Why, I'm shakin' in my shoes whenever I think of
to-morrow, but if it were my own weddin' I shouldn't turn a hair."
Young Danvers guffawed at this.
"Bet you'll turn the colour of this table when the time comes, if it
ever does come, which I doubt!"
"Why?" questioned Tots.
Danvers laughed again, enjoying the joke. Tots was always more or less
of a butt to his friends.
"In the first place, you'd never have the courage or the energy to
propose. In the second, no girl would ever take you seriously. In the
third--"
He broke off, struck silent by a wholly unexpected display of energy on
the part of Tots, who had suddenly hurled a piece of chalk at him from
the other end of the room. It hit him smartly on the shoulder, leaving a
white patch to testify to the excellence of Tots's aim.
"I beg your pardon," said Tots mildly. "But you really shouldn't talk
such rot, particularly in the presence of my _fiancee_."
He turned round to Ruth, who was shrinking into a corner behind him, and
with a courtly gesture drew her forward.
"In the first place," he said, addressing the assembled company with a
good-humoured smile, "I had the courage and the energy to propose only
this afternoon.
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