"Fools!" muttered Old Hurricane, over his punch—"jacks! they'll all get the pleurisy except those that get drunk! Did they all go, Wool?"
"Ebery man, 'oman and chile, sar!—'cept 'tis me and coachman, sar!"
"More fools they! And I shouldn't wonder if you, you old scarecrow, didn't want to go too!"
"No, Marse——"
"I know better, sir! Don't contradict me! Well, as soon as I'm in bed, and that won't be long now, you may go—so that you get back in time to wait on me to-morrow morning."
"Thanky, marse."
"Hold your tongue! You're as big a fool as the rest."
"I take this," said Old Hurricane, as he sipped his punch and smacked his lips—"I take this to be the very quintessence of human enjoyment—sitting here in my soft, warm chair before the fire, toasting my legs, sipping my punch, listening on the one hand to the storm without and glancing on the other hand at my comfortable bed waiting there to receive my sleepy head. If there is anything better than this in this world I wish somebody would let me know it."
"It's all werry comformable indeed, marse," said the obsequious Wool.
"I wonder, now, if there is anything on the face of the earth that would tempt me to leave my cozy fireside and go abroad to-night? I wonder how large a promise of pleasure or profit or glory it would take now?"