Which Describes a Peripatetic Conversation

"Barnabas--Beverley. At your service."

"Barnabas--hum! Yours isn't much better. Egad! I think 't is about
as bad. Barnabas!--No, I'll call you Bev, on condition that you make
mine Dick; what d' ye say, my dear Bev?"

"Agreed, Dick," answered Barnabas, smiling, whereupon they stopped,
and having very solemnly shaken hands, went on again, merrier than
ever.

"Now what," inquired the Viscount, suddenly, "what do you think of
marriage, my dear Bev?"

"Marriage?" repeated Barnabas, staring.

"Marriage!" nodded his Lordship, airily, "matrimony, Bev,--wedlock,
my dear fellow?"

"I--indeed I have never had occasion to think of it."

"Fortunate fellow!" sighed his companion.

"Until--this morning!" added Barnabas, as his fingers encountered a
small, soft, lacy bundle in his pocket.

"Un-fortunate fellow!" sighed the Viscount, shaking his head.
"So you are haunted by the grim spectre, are you? Well, that should
be an added bond between us. Not that I quarrel with matrimony, mark
you, Bev; in the abstract it is a very excellent institution,
though--mark me again!--when a man begins to think of marriage it is
generally the beginning of the end. Ah, my dear fellow! many a
bright and promising career has been blighted--sapped--snapped
off--and--er--ruthlessly devoured by the ravenous maw of marriage.
There was young Egerton with a natural gift for boxing, and one of
the best whips I ever knew--we raced our coaches to Brighton and
back for a thousand a side and he beat me by six yards--a splendid
all round sportsman--ruined by matrimony! He's buried somewhere in
the country and passing his days in the humdrum pursuit of being
husband and father. Oh, bruise and blister me! it's all very pitiful,
and yet"--here the Viscount sighed again--"I do not quarrel with
the state, for marriage has often proved a--er--very present help in
the time of trouble, Bev."