"No! Not Frenchman, not Roman! Born in Egypta!"
"Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely.
Mummy,—mummy. How calm he is, how self-possessed! Is—ah!—is he dead?"
"Oh, sacré bleu! been dead three thousan' year!"
The doctor turned on him savagely:—
"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this? Playing us for Chinamen, because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile secondhand carcasses on us! Thunder and lightning! I've a notion to—to—if you've got a nice, fresh corpse fetch him out!—or we'll brain you!"
However, he has paid us back partly, and without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavoured, as well as he could, to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say.
Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.
Mark Twain.
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