Page:Foggerty.djvu/172

168 nincompoop, and do I hear her excusing herself by attributing her behaviour to an irresistible impulse?"

And he dodged and ducked about the room in a wholly irrational and unaccountable manner.

"Sergeant, do not hastily condemn me," said Jenny, rushing at the Sergeant, and endeavouring to embrace him as she before endeavoured to embrace Peter.

"Jenny, I'm ashamed of you—shocked,—disgusted!" said he, dodging and ducking, as she tried to throw her arms round his neck. "I loved you for your remarkable and unexampled modesty: but really—"

"Don't, don't be hard on me, Sergeant," said she; "indeed, I am as timid and modest as ever, but an irrepressible impulse compels me to kiss every man I meet."

And she once more threw her arms around him and embraced him. The Sergeant (who had been very carefully brought up) was horrified, and rushed from the room into the street in utter disgust, dodging and ducking all the way, Jenny following him with a most demonstrative show of affection.

In the street the Sergeant met Peter. Peter was in a terrible state of mind, and encountering the Sergeant, would willingly have run away: but the spell the Old Lady had thrown over him compelled him to square up at the Sergeant in the most reckless manner imaginable.

The Sergeant, who was furious at having discovered Jenny's apparent love for Peter, desired nothing better than to give Peter a sound thrashing, but to his own intense annoyance, and to Peter's unspeakable surprise and relief, the fairy's spell compelled the Sergeant to