“Thirty seconds,” he said. “I’ll take her.” He replaced his watch, and I took Tact’s hand. All the female Stools have poor circulations. “So we’ll be getting married,” I said, “in due course.” “Yes,” she said. “That’ll be very nice.” Then her four sisters, who had evidently been waiting outside, came and shook hands with me with expressions of delight, and Ezekiel informed me that his solicitor would be in attendance the next morning. I bowed a little stiffly. “I shall be here,” I said, and Ezekiel replied that he had no doubt of it. Then I shook hands again with Tact and her sisters, bidding them good-bye for the present; and they bade me good-bye, also for the present, adding that they would be seeing me to-morrow. “Yes, to-morrow,” I said. “I’ll be seeing you to-morrow.” “Then we’ll say good-bye,” they said, “till to-morrow.” “Yes, till to-morrow,” I said, “to-morrow morning.” “Then we’ll say good-bye,” they said, “till to-morrow morning.” Nor did I fail to keep the appointment, though little did I dream, as I groped for the door, that not even yet had I been called upon to face the ultimate temperature of my refining fire. For hardly had I arrived, somewhat fresher than I expected, at the garden gate of Mon Repos when there staggered up to it a railway omnibus, congested to the limit of its legal capacity. Deformed with luggage and distended with females, a single glance was sufficient to paralyse me, though less on my own account than on that of my father, who now stood transfixed on the doorstep. Then he gave a small cry of the extremest pathos, and as my mother’s eight sisters descended to the pavement, he fell forward upon the garden path, never to rise again. But it was too much even for me, shaken as I had been to my very foundations, and turning my back and covering my eyes from that hurrying, Welsh-speaking female flood, I fell forward parallel to my father, though with my head in the opposite direction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIX Commencement of my life’s afternoon. My father’s eight sisters-in-law return to Wales. Astounding attitude of my mother. Physical effect thereof on myself. I move to Stoke Newington. Further parochial activities. Simeon Whey obtains a living. I move to Hornsey and become a Churchwarden. Complete decline of Ezekiel Stool. Birth of my son. A happy augury.