"H'm! You may have to go into the hospital you know."
"What do I want with hospitals? If die I must, let me die!"
"Well, that's true enough."
They were passing a tract of land planted with birches, and the birches cast upon them the patterned shadows of their fine slender leaves. The sparrows were hopping along the road chirping merrily.
"You don't walk very well," remarked Jig-Leg after a moment's silence.
"That's because I have a choky feeling," exclaimed Hopeful. "The air is now thick and damp, it is a fat sort of air and I find it hard to swallow."
And stopping short, he fell a-coughing.
Jig-Leg stood beside him, smoked away, and never took his eyes off him. Hopeful, shaken by his attack of coughing, held his bosom with his hands and his face grew blue.
"It gives my lungs a good tearing any way!" said he, when he had ceased coughing.
And on they went again after scaring away the sparrows.