'The glass was rising,' answered Lepage. 'I am perfectly certain it was. And John Paqualin is a madman.'
'Madman yourself,' said the Feeling—for feelings are very free-spoken, you know, and don't mince matters—'madman yourself for letting your wife, who is a delicate woman, and that poor child, little Peter, run such a risk of cold, and fatigue, and perhaps worse.'
'Antony knows the way,' answered Lepage again. 'And he's an able fellow.'
'He is a boy, and like most boys is thoughtless and self-opinionated. He takes after you in that last, by the same token,' said the Feeling.
'I am a philosophic politician,' cried Lepage, somewhat hotly. 'I worship the goddess of Reason.'
'Do you?' said the Feeling. 'And these newspapers you were so anxious to sit at home and read to-day, full—as you perfectly well know—of garbled news, and one-sided statements, and of cheap party cries—they are the voice of Reason, are they?'
'Hang you!' answered Lepage—which was not at all a pretty way of answering. But then, you see, poor Master Lepage was getting very angry because he was very uncomfortable; and when persons are both uncomfortable and angry they are liable to make use of expressions which, very properly, are not printed in the French and English conversation books that you study in the schoolroom.—'I won't listen to you. So away with you. I have no doubt—'
'No doubt, haven't you?' said the Feeling. 'Well, I am glad to hear that.'
'No doubt at all—ten thousand plagues on you—no doubt at all, I say, that my wife and children will be home in ten minutes at the latest. Meanwhile I will read a little. I will improve my mind with the history of those grand, old Romans.'