Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/179

 "Keep back, or I declare I will fire," he was crying. "Have a care, for God's sake! My pistol"

He might scream as he pleased. Willy nilly, I folded him to my breast, I pressed him there, I kissed his ugly mug as it had never been kissed before and would never be kissed again; and in the doing so knocked his wig awry and his hat off. He bleated in my embrace; so bleats the sheep in the arms of the butcher. The whole thing, on looking back, appears incomparably reckless and absurd; I no better than a madman for offering to advance on Dudgeon, and he no better than a fool for not shooting me while I was about it. But all's well that ends well; or, as the people in these days kept singing and whistling on the streets:—

"There!" said I, releasing him a little, but still keeping my hands on his shoulders, "je vous ai bel et bien embrassé—and, as you would say, there is another French word." With his wig over one eye, he looked incredibly rueful and put out. "Cheer up. Dudgeon; the ordeal is over, you shall be embraced no more. But do, first of all, for God's sake, put away your pistol; you handle it as if it were a cockatrice; some time or other, depend upon it, it will certainly go off. Here is your hat. No, let me put it on square, and the wig before it. Never suffer any stress of circumstances to come between you and the duty you owe to yourself. If you have nobody else to dress for, dress for God!