I Forbid the Banns! — page 293: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE LOCUST AS A COMESTIBLE. 283 The youth screwed up his eyes and his mouth into the knowing smile of the young dog; he glanced cautiously around and then bent his head as close to Bertha’s as was possible, before whispering with every suggestion of being a very naughty man: “Legs!” and then he lay back in fits at his own light humor. It was very airy, he felt; and of course it was a bit naughty—what humor is worth anything that is not a bit naughty? ‘“ They all like it, these young married ones,” he was accustomed to explain to those dull people who suggested that, now and again, he went a little too far in his humor. Bertha looked at the humorist for a few moments, and then quietly rose and left the room. “YT think I had better leave your friends with you,” she said to Julian as she rose. There was a considerable silence in the room after her departure. ‘The visitors glanced at one another, and then at Charlton. “Tt is wonderful,” said Charlton, ‘how quickly things change even in so slow a county as Brackenshire. Since I have returned I have found myself actually old-fashioned.” ‘‘ Well, maybe you are a bit off, old man,” said one of his visitors; “but, never mind; we make all allowances for you. A couple of years’ travel is bound to make the best of fellows a trifle cramped in his notions, you know.” ‘‘T dare say,’ said Charlton. ‘“ But if it has become the right thing to swear in the presence of the lady whom you are visiting, and with whom you are talking, I am rather glad I took to traveling, and I am inclined to think that I shall take to it again.’’ ‘“ A man may now and again make a slip like that, with- out any harm coming of it,” said the fox-hunter., . ‘That is quite true,” said Charlton. ‘ But it was always the custom that a man making such a slip apologized for it CORNIELIOOKS (E(0)