I Forbid the Banns! — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

76 “7 FORBID THE BANNS!” Charlie Barham had no foolish scruples on the score of veracity—voracity was his topic, which is quite another matter—so he succeeded in keeping Bertha enthralled. She stood beaming upon the boy, while he told her how — the marine who was bathing, having once got a firm hold of the shark’s tail, succeeded in steering the fish in the direction of the father of the boy it had just swallowed, when, owing to the happy accident of the father having brought an oyster knife into the water with him, for the purpose of detaching from the rocks the edible mollusks of which he was passionately fond, the brute was, after a sharp fight, destroyed ; then, to the amazement of all, the lad forced his way through the aperture in the shark’s body made by the oyster knife, and was found very little the worse for his singular adventure. “What arm of the service do you say the man belonged to ?”’ asked Charlton. “T said he was a marine,” replied the midshipman. “And did he tell the story to his messmates in the same corps?” said Charlton. There was a little pause before all the audience except Bertha began to laugh. ‘‘T don’t see why you should laugh, Mr. Charlton,” said she. ‘I don’t think I ever hearda more remarkable story. I shall never forget it.” “Thank you, Miss Lancaster,” said the boy. “I have told that story to several people, and I can safely say that I never yet found anyone to believe it. I will never forget your kindness. As for these idiots who laugh at it ‘ He turned to give a look of ineffable scorn at Charlton ; but Charlton was deep in a chutney jar, and a look of scorn would be wasted on him, the boy perceived ; so he trotted round to the opposite side of the table. So elated was he with his success that he told Miss Lancaster across the tablecloth another pleasant little story CORNIECLIOOKS (E(0)