“I wish,” said Mr. Ben Allen, setting his teeth together, and speaking more like a savage warrior who fed on raw wolf’s flesh which he carved with his fingers, than a peaceable young gentleman who ate minced veal with a knife and fork⁠—“I wish I knew whether any rascal really has been tampering with her, and attempting to engage her affections. I think I should assassinate him, Bob.”

“I’d put a bullet in him, if I found him out,” said Mr. Sawyer, stopping in the course of a long draught of beer, and looking malignantly out of the porter pot. “If that didn’t do his business, I’d extract it afterwards, and kill him that way.”

Mr. Benjamin Allen gazed abstractedly on his friend for some minutes in silence, and then said⁠—

“You have never proposed to her, point-blank, Bob?”