When the door was shut he said, “Come downstairs with me, Mrs. Beckett, and show me a light, please.”
“Yes, sir,” I said; “but you’ll have to go a mile and a half to get what you want.”
“No, I sha’n’t,” he said. “Come downstairs to the parlour.”
When we got there he pulled the empty medicine bottle out of his pocket, and said, “Get me some cold water.”
I got him some cold water, and he put it in a tumbler. Then he said, “Give me a little salt.”
I gave him the salt, and he put it in the water. Then he mixed it up well with a spoon, and then he tasted it. “That’ll do,” he said. Then he poured it into the medicine-bottle, and corked it up.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll put on my hat and coat, and you let me out and bang the door loud.”
I did, and waited five minutes; and then he knocked, and I let him in.
He was quite out of breath.
“Why, you’ve been running!” I said.