There was some delay; a call for fresh bones,
I think; and would you believe it?--I fell asleep with the box in my
hand!"
"A desperate case, indeed," said the Abbe.
"If it had not been for Krahwinkel, I should have been a dead man,
that's positive. That pinking him saved me."
"I make no doubt of it," said the Abbe. "Had your Excellency not
run him through, he, without a doubt, would have done the same for
you."
"Psha! you mistake my words, Monsieur l'Abbe" (yawning). "I
mean--what cursed chocolate!--that I was dying for want of
excitement. Not that I cared for dying; no, d---- me if I do!"
"WHEN you do, your Excellency means," said the Abbe, a fat
grey-haired Irishman, from the Irlandois College at Paris.
His Excellency did not laugh, nor understand jokes of any kind; he
was of an undeviating stupidity, and only replied, "Sir, I mean what
I say. I don't care for living: no, nor for dying either; but I
can speak as well as another, and I'll thank you not to be
correcting my phrases as if I were one of your cursed schoolboys,
and not a gentleman of fortune and blood."
Herewith the Count, who had uttered four sentences about himself (he
never spoke of anything else), sunk back on his pillows again, quite
exhausted by his eloquence.
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