“Mortimer! How you talk! Have you forgotten the yellow fever?”
“My dear, you are always throwing up the yellow fever to me, and I think it is perfectly unreasonable. You can’t even send a telegraphic message as far as Memphis without relays, so how is a little devotional slip of mine going to carry so far? I’ll stand the earthquake, because it was in the neighborhood; but I’ll be hanged if I’m going to be responsible for every blamed—”
[Fzt!—BOOM beroom-boom! boom!—BANG!]
“Oh, dear, dear, dear! I know it struck something, Mortimer. We never shall see the light of another day; and if it will do you any good to remember, when we are gone, that your dreadful language—Mortimer!”
“Well! What now?”
“Your voice sounds as if— Mortimer, are you actually standing in front of that open fireplace?”
“That is the very crime I am committing.”
“Get away from it, this moment. You do seem determined to bring destruction on us all. Don’t you know that there is no better conductor for lightning than an open chimney? Now where have you got to?”
“I’m here by the window.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, have you lost your mind? Clear out from there, this moment. The very children in arms know it is fatal to stand near a window in a thunder-storm. Dear, dear, I know I shall never see the light of another day. Mortimer?”