"Oh! only just in time. Why, he was already black in the face."
"What did you do to him?"
"I said to him, 'Be patient and wait for me.'"
"It is not easy to be patient when one is choking."
"Good heavens! what else could I have said? It wasn't my fault. Then I ran as fast as I could into the garden; I tore up a leek, washed it, cut off its stalks and stuffed it right down his throat. It is a sovereign remedy for fish bones!"
"Indeed, I can well believe it."
"Now, he never speaks of me except with tears in his eyes."
"All the more since the leek belongs to the onion family."
"All the same, it vexes me."
"What vexes you? That the poor dear man was not choked?"