“There, that’ll do, my dear! and now you’ve got to take this here physic directly, to do you good.”
The old man looked at her in a vacant, helpless way for a few moments, and then his countenance grew angry, and he motioned the medicine aside.
“Oh, come now, it’s of no use! You’ve got to take it, so now then!”
She pressed the cup towards his lips; but the old man struck at it angrily, and it flew across the room, splashing the bed with the opium-impregnated liquid, and then shattering on the cemented floor.
“Well, of all the owd rips as ever I did see!” cried the woman. “Oh, you are better, then!”
“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?” cried Gemp, pointing as if nothing had happened.
“Oh, about your money in the bank for aught I know!” cried the woman.
“Ha!”
The old man clapped his hands to his forehead, and held them there for a few minutes, staring straight before him at the bed-room wall.
He had uttered that ejaculation so sharply that the woman started, and recoiled from him, in ignorance of the fact that she had touched the key-note that had set the fibres of his memory athrill.