"General, I have been nightmared," replied Mocquet solemnly. Mocquet, all unconsciously, had enriched the language with an active verb.
"Oh! you have been nightmared—have you?" exclaimed my father, as he raised himself on one elbow.
"Yes, General."
And Mocquet drew his cutty-pipe out of his mouth, a thing he rarely did, and only under very serious provocation.
Now this pipe was more than an accessary to Mocquet—it was an integral part of the man.
No one had ever seen Mocquet without his pipe. If, by chance, it was out of his mouth, he held it in his hand.
This pipe, intended to accompany Mocquet into the midst of the thickest forests, presented the least possible surface that could encounter destruction by contact with any solid body.
Now the destruction of a well seasoned cutty-pipe would, in Mocquet's eyes, mean a loss that only the work of years could repair.
The stem of this pipe of Mocquet's never projected more than half an inch.