“Guess he means Accident,” says I. “What do you know about it, Jarvis?”
“Why,” says he, “I was there.”
“What?” says I. “Here, Heiney, wake up! Here’s one of the victims of your rat poison soup. Does he look as though he’d been through that floor tweestin’ orgy?”
With that Heiney gets mighty interested; but he ain’t convinced until Jarvis gives him all the details, even to namin’ the landlord and describin’ the head waiter.
“But ze soup!” says Heiney. “Ze poi-zon-ed soup?”
“It was bad soup,” says Jarvis; “but not quite so bad as that. Nobody could eat it, and I believe the final report that we had on the subject was to the effect that a half intoxicated chef had seasoned it with the powdered alum that should have gone into the morning rolls.”
“Ze alum! Ze alum! Of zat I nevair think!” squeals Heiney, flopping down on his knees. “Ah, le bon Dieu! Le bon Dieu!”
He clasps his hands in front of him and rolls his eyes to the ceilin’. Say, it was the liveliest French prayin’ I ever saw; for Heiney is rockin’ back and forth, his pop eyes leakin’ brine, and the polly-voo conversation is bubblin’ out of him like water out of a bu’sted fire hydrant.
“Ah, quit it!” says I. “This is no camp meetin’.”
There’s no shuttin’ him off, though, and all the let-up he takes is to break off now and then to get Jarvis to tell him once more that it’s all true.