‘Oh!’ said I, like a man suddenly enlightened. For he looked at me for an answer.
‘Yes. Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the British troops. No harm will be done to the others. No harm at all. Those that want to be safe, must hoist flags. That’s all they’ll have to do. They must hoist flags.’
Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint idea that his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his hot head with the blankets.
There was another: a young man, whose madness was love and music. After playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very anxious that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately did.
By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect, and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself:
‘What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours!’
‘Poh!’ said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his instrument: ‘Well enough for such an Institution as this!’
I don’t think I was ever so taken aback in all my life.
‘I come here just for a whim,’ he said coolly. ‘That’s all.’
‘Oh! That’s all!’ said I.