I Forbid the Banns! — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

144 “IT FORBID THE BANNS!” When a man has been for about thirty years accustomed to be strictly accurate in his speech, and never even to sug- gest a falsehood, he has always more or less difficulty in accommodating himself to a different course of life. It is not so easy becoming a liar as people generally suppose. Julian Charlton was but a beginner—a clumsy amateur at ‘an art in which even the cleverest of mankind have failed to perfect themselves, in spite of almost constant practice in its higher branches. All points considered, he was to be pardoned those little gasps of his now and again—for those inartistic little pauses when he should have been glib—for that little sigh of relief when he was released. Even the most exacting critic might have pardoned him. He wanted practice. Gomichooks (E@)