“How should I know?”
“Come, George, you don’t play the part of Innocence over well. Suppose you try Candor, and tell me where you have been.”
“You mistake my identity. I’m not your baby. You will find the youthful Charlie entertaining his mother up stairs.”
A long-drawn-out, agonized wail, proceeding from the regions above, showed how Bessie was being entertained.
“No opening yet?” I ventured to ask, changing the subject.
“Not the slightest prospect. If some of these doctors could only be inveigled into taking some of their own prescriptions! But no; they are too wise.”
“The bitterness of your tone would seem to indicate that you have not enjoyed your visit to the town.”
“The town be hanged, and the country too! Let’s take a walk down the street. Give me a cigar, confound you! How hot it is!”
We strolled down the street.
“This is a terrible vale of tears, this world,” said I. “The world is hollow, and my doll is stuffed with sawdust, which accounts for his howling.”