Page:Baboohurrybungsh00anstiala.djvu/183

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JABBERJEE, B.A.
161

the bride of such a man of straw as this undeserving self, and will no longer offer any factious opposition to your wishes.

But in the intoxicating ardour of my billing and cooing I may have omitted to mention that, when I have led you to the Hymeneal altar, you will not be alone in your glory. As a Koolin Brahmin, I am, by laws of my country, entitled to about thirty or forty spouses, though, owing to natural timidity and economical reasons, I have not hitherto availed myself of said privilege.

However, when that I was a little tiny boy, I was compelled by family pressure to contract matrimony with an equally juvenile female of eight, and, though circumstances have prevented the second ceremony being celebrated on arriving at the more mature age of discretion, such infant marriage is notwithstanding the binding affair.

What of it? Your overwhelming affection will render you totally indifferent to the unpleasant side of your position as a sateen or rival wife, though it is the antipode of the bed of roses, especially under internecine feuds and perpetual snipsnaps with sundry aunts and sisters-in-law of mine of rather nagging idiosyncracies. But ignorance of language will probably blind your sensitive ears to the sneering and ill-natured tone of their remarks.

I can only say that I am quite ready (if you