“Nothing. Just turning on the water. This room is smothering hot and close. I want to bathe my face and hands.”
“You have certainly parted with the remnant of your mind! Where lightning strikes any other substance once, it strikes water fifty times. Do turn it off. Oh, dear, I am sure that nothing in this world can save us. It does seem to me that—Mortimer, what was that?”
“It was a da—it was a picture. Knocked it down.”
“Then you are close to the wall! I never heard of such imprudence! Don’t you know that there’s no better conductor for lightning than a wall? Come away from there! And you came as near as anything to swearing, too. Oh, how can you be so desperately wicked, and your family in such peril? Mortimer, did you order a feather bed, as I asked you to do?”
“No. Forgot it.”
“Forgot it! It may cost you your life. If you had a feather bed, now, and could spread it in the middle of the room and lie on it, you would be perfectly safe. Come in here,—come quick, before you have a chance to commit any more frantic indiscretions.”
I tried, but the little closet would not hold us both with the door shut, unless we could be content to smother. I gasped awhile, then forced my way out. My wife called out,—
“Mortimer, something must be done for your preservation. Give me that German book that is on the end of the mantel-piece, and a candle; but don’t light it; give me a match; I will light it in here. That book has some directions in it.”
I got the book,—at cost of a vase and some other brittle things; and the madam shut herself up with her candle. I had a moment’s peace; then she called out,—
“Mortimer, what was that?”