To his best man, Mr. Terry, the corporal said:
"Sergeant-major, I have got my guard. A prisoner may slip from me,
Sergeant-major, but when that strapping woman puts her arms round him,
he'll be as helpless as a child. I shall apply to the Council for an
increase of pay." Soon afterwards, Maguffin got a holiday, went to
Dromore, where Miss Tolliver was sojourning with Mrs. Thomas, took that
lady to Collingwood, the coloured Baptist preacher of which united them,
and came home triumphantly in the stage with his bride. They received a
great ovation in the kitchen, and, Mr. Terry having joined the party,
played the geographical game till midnight, as a sober, improving, and
semi-religious way of celebrating the event. Mr. Maguffin remarked that
the Baktis preacher had promised, out of the two-dollar fee, to insert a
notice of the marriage in a leading paper, adding the words, "No Cards,"
but, said Tobias, "he warn't nebber moah leff in all hees life, 'kase
here's the keerds and heaps on 'em. Yah! yah! yah!"
The colonel was getting anxious to start for the Mississippi, and
begged his deceased wife's sister to confer with her daughter, and name
the day.
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