know--I told you, Adrian--how I had to threaten and insist, and how she
pleaded, and implored me to wait."

"Ah! hum!" mumbled Adrian.

"You remember my telling you?" Richard was earnest to hear her
exonerated.

"Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where's the
lass that doesn't."

"Call my wife by another name, if you please."

"The generic title can't be cancelled because of your having married one
of the body, my son."

"She did all she could to persuade me to wait!" emphasized Richard.

Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile.

"Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!"

Richard bellowed: "What more could she have done?"

"She could have shaved her head, for instance."

This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation Richard shot in
front, Adrian following him; and asking him (merely to have his
assumption verified), whether he did not think she might have shaved her
head? and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour, he did not