“No, no, I thank you. Probably she is cross because she knows that no one except herself can cut the snuff just as I like it. Do you know, my dear,” she went on after a pause, “that your children very nearly set the house on fire this morning?”
Papa gazed at Grandmamma with respectful astonishment.
“Yes, they were playing with something or another. Tell him the story,” she added to Mimi.
Papa could not help smiling as he took the shot in his hand.
“This is only small shot, Mamma,” he remarked, “and could never be dangerous.”
“I thank you, my dear, for your instruction, but I am rather too old for that sort of thing.”
“Nerves, nerves!” whispered the doctor.
Papa turned to us and asked us where we had got the stuff, and how we could dare to play with it.
“Don’t ask them, ask that useless ‘Uncle,’ rather,” put in Grandmamma, laying a peculiar stress upon the word “Uncle.” “What else is he for?”
“Woloda says that Karl Ivanitch gave him the powder himself,” declared Mimi.