'
Mr Tappertit stopped to take breath after this, and then started fresh
again.
'Now, sir, I am a coming to the point. You will inquire of me, "how is
this to be prevented?" I'll tell you how. If an honest, civil, smiling
gentleman like you--'
'Mr Tappertit--really--'
'No, no, I'm serious,' rejoined the 'prentice, 'I am, upon my soul.
If an honest, civil, smiling gentleman like you, was to talk but ten
minutes to our old woman--that's Mrs Varden--and flatter her up a bit,
you'd gain her over for ever. Then there's this point got--that her
daughter Dolly,'--here a flush came over Mr Tappertit's face--'wouldn't
be allowed to be a go-between from that time forward; and till that
point's got, there's nothing ever will prevent her. Mind that.'
'Mr Tappertit, your knowledge of human nature--'
'Wait a minute,' said Sim, folding his arms with a dreadful calmness.
'Now I come to THE point. Sir, there is a villain at that Maypole, a
monster in human shape, a vagabond of the deepest dye, that unless you
get rid of and have kidnapped and carried off at the very least--nothing
less will do--will marry your son to that young woman, as certainly and
as surely as if he was the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.
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