"Schmetz," snapped the doctor, "shut up!—Now then, I want to know who fired off that rooster."
"I did!" I said valiantly. "Look at my bulbs! Just look at my bulbs!"
"Look at my stomach!" roared the doctor. "Just look at my stomach!"
"Mon Dieu! O mon Dieu!" cried Schmetz, dancing up and down. "Monsieur, again I implore that you will remain calm and listen to the voice of reason! Your hens, creatures malicious and accursed—"
"Why should I look at your horrid stomach?" said I, outraged. "I think you had better get down off that ladder and go away!"
"Why should you? Because, you jade, you've all but driven a twenty-pound rooster clean through it—beak, spurs and tail feathers—that's why!" bawled the doctor. "Gad! I shall be black and blue for a fortnight! I'm colicky now: I need a mustard-plaster!"
"Two mustard-plasters," I insisted severely: "one on your tongue and the other on your temper!"
"Temper?" flared the doctor, and flung up his arms. "Temper? Here's a minx that's all but murdered me, and yet has the stark effrontery to blather about temper! You've a bad one yourself, let me tell you! You've the worst, outside of your late aunt—"
"Grand-aunt-in-law; your own cousin-by-blood, whom you greatly resemble in that same matter of family temper, I am given to understand."
"Gatchell told you that!" cried the doctor, wrathfully. "Fish-blooded old mummy! His place is in a Canopic jar! Gatchell hasn't had a thought since 1845."