“Well, honey! gracious knows it does me good to see you so chirping!” said the old woman, dropping cozily into a soft, low chair by the fire.
“Nurse,” said Drusilla, cautiously approaching the subject that now occupied her thoughts—for she was determined to keep her husband’s name out of the question—“nurse, in all your professional experience did you ever encounter monomaniacs?”
“’Count—which, honey? ‘Many money knacks?’ What’s that? tricks to make money? No, child, I can’t say as I ever did.”
“I meant to ask,” said Drusilla, smiling, “if in all your tending of the sick in these many years you ever met with anybody who was mad on one subject only and sane on all others.”
“Cracked in one place? Yes, child, many and many a one.”
“Tell me about them.”
“There was young Rowse Jordan—I mean young Mr. Rowsby Jordan. He had typhoid fever, and after he got well for ever so long he fancyfied himself to be a coffee-pot and sat roosted upon the top of the table with one arm curved around for a handle and the other stuck out straight for a spout.”
“How long did the hallucination last?”
“The—hally—which, honey?”
“Tut! How long did he fancy himself a tea-pot?”