Mr. Vickers regarded him with undisguised astonishment.

“I might ha’ married scores o’ times if I’d liked,” said Mr. Russell, with a satisfied air.

“Don’t you go doing nothing silly,” said Mr. Vickers, uneasily.  “Selina can’t abear you.  You drink too much.  Why, she’s talking about making young Joseph sign the pledge, to keep’im steady.”

Mr. Russell waved his objections aside.  “I can get round her,” he said, with cheery confidence.  “I ain’t kept ferrets all these years for nothing.  I’m not going to let all that money slip through my fingers for want of a little trying.”

He began his courtship a few days afterwards in a fashion which rendered Mr. Vickers almost helpless with indignation.  In full view of Selina, who happened to be standing by the door, he brought her unfortunate father along Mint Street, holding him by the arm and addressing him in fond but severe tones on the surpassing merits of total abstinence and the folly of wasting his children’s money on beer.

“I found ’im inside the ‘Horse and Groom,"’ he said to the astonished Selina;” they’ve got a new barmaid there, and the pore gal wasn’t in the house ’arf an hour afore she was serving him with beer.  A pot, mind you.”

[Illustration:  “’I found ‘im inside the Horse and Groom,’ he said.”]

He shook his head in great regret at the speechless Mr. Vickers, and, pushing him inside the house, followed close behind.

“Look here, Bill Russell, I don’t want any of your larks,” said Miss Vickers, recovering herself.

“Larks?” repeated Mr. Russell, with an injured air.  “I’m a teetotaler, and it’s my duty to look after brothers that go astray.”

He produced a pledge-card from his waistcoat-pocket and, smoothing it out on the table, pointed with great pride to his signature.  The date of the document lay under the ban of his little finger.

“I’d just left the Temperance Hall,” continued the zealot.  “I’ve been to three meetings in two days; they’d been talking about the new barmaid, and I guessed at once what brother Vickers would do, an’ I rushed off, just in the middle of brother Humphrey’s experiences—­and very interesting they was, too—­to save him.  He was just starting his second pot, and singing in between, when I rushed in and took the beer away from him and threw it on the floor.”

“I wasn’t singing,” snarled Mr. Vickers, endeavouring to avoid his daughter’s eye.

“Oh, my dear friend!” said Mr. Russell, who had made extraordinary progress in temperance rhetoric in a very limited time,” that’s what comes o’ the drink; it steals away your memory.”

Miss Vickers trembled with wrath.  “How dare you go into public-houses after I told you not to?” she demanded, stamping her foot.

“We must ’ave patience,” said Mr. Russell, gently.  “We must show the backslider ’ow much happier he would be without it.  I’ll ’elp you watch him.”