“But James hasn’t done it yet, has he?”
“No, but I awoke as angry at him as if he had; and though I have come out to get a mouthful of fresh air, I can’t get quit of my wrath.”
“Angry at a dream,” said I, as I looked into William’s scowling face. “I thought we had all quite enough to be angry at, without having recourse to dreams.”
“Ay, but I can’t help it,” said he again; “I have been trying to shake it off, but it won’t do.”
“It will fly off with the whisky fever, William,” said I. “James and you are old friends, and you mustn’t allow a dream to break your friendship.”
“Wouldn’t like that either,” was the reply. “He’s a good-natured creature, and I like him; but I can’t get quit of his visage as he stuck the knife into me. It has haunted me all the morning.”
“So that you would reverse the dream, and make it true by contraries, as the old ladies do, when they can’t get things to fit—by sticking the knife into him?”
“No, I wouldn’t feel it in my heart to stab the best friend I have,” said he; and looking wistfully into my face with his bloodshot eyes, he added, “But maybe a glass with James will wear it off.”
“Yes, of pure spring water from the Fountain well there,” said I.
“I never was very fond of water,” said he, with a kind of grim smile, “nor is it very fond of me. One can’t talk over it.”