'Glad to see you so much better, madam,' he continued. 'Rather singular, isn't it, that your health and spirits have revived immediately we have left the inspired scene of public action, or—to speak in plain terms—when there's no work to do!'
'I think it's the fresh air, Augustus, that has done me good; there was such a close, stifling smell from the fair, I felt worse directly we got there.'
'It's to be hoped,' he said, with a disagreeable smile on his face, 'that this resuscitation of the vital powers may be continued until we arrive at Lesborough', but the probability is that the moment we arrive on the scene of action, you will be seized with that most unpleasant of all maladies, distaste to your work, and will be compelled once more to resume that most interesting and pathetic occupation of playing the invalid!'
'Oh, Augustus, don't speak to me like that!' said the poor wife.
Augustus made no answer, but, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, twisted it up, and, putting it into the fire, lighted a long pipe and began to smoke. The fumes of the tobacco brought on his poor wife's cough, but he took very little notice of her, except to ask her occasionally, between the whiffs of his pipe, how long that melodious sound was to last. Then his eyes fell upon Rosalie's picture, which was pinned to the side of the caravan.
'Where did you get that from?' he inquired, turning to his wife.
'It's mine, father,' said little Rosalie; 'an old gentleman in the fair gave it to me. Isn't it pretty?'
It will do for a child,' he said scornfully. 'Toby, what are you after?
You're creeping along; we shall never get there at this pace.'
'The horse is tired, master,' said Toby; 'he's had a long stretch these two days.'
'Beat him, then,' said the cruel man; 'flog him well. Do you think I can afford to waste time upon the road? The wild beasts are a mile ahead, at the very least, and the marionettes will be there by this time. We shall just arrive when all the people have spent their money, and are tired out.'