“Why did you leave the cage open?” replied Theodore. “A third of a line!”
“There is an uprising in the South and in the Rue du Cadran,” said the old aunt, who was reading the evening paper.
“What the devil are the people meddling with?” answered Theodore. “A third of a line!”
“Your farm at la Beauce has been burned,” said his servant in putting him to bed.
“It must be rebuilt,” said Theodore, “if it is worth the trouble. A third of a line!”
“Do you think that this is serious?” the nurse asked me.
“Your question proves, my good woman, that you have not read the ‘Journal des Sciences Médicales.’ Why do you delay in getting a priest?”
Happily at that minute the curé came in to converse, as was his custom, about the thousand and one literary and bibliographical trifles from which his breviary had not wholly distracted him; but he forgot them all when he felt Theodore’s pulse.