... Going too fast, am I? So I'm bating you at last, eh?”
A cold perspiration had broken out on Philip's forehead, and he was looking up with the eyes of a hunted dog.
“Am I to—must I write that?” he said in a helpless way.
“Coorse—go ahead,” said Pete, puffing clouds of smoke, and laughing.
Philip wrote it. His hand was now stiff. It sprawled and splashed over the paper.
“'As for myself, I'm a sort of a grass-widow, and if you
keep me without a wife much longer they'll be taxing me for
a bachelor.'”
Pete put his pipe on the mantelpiece, cleared his throat repeatedly, and began to be afflicted with a cough.
“'Glad to hear you're coming home soon, darling (cough).
Dearest Kirry, I'm missing you mortal (cough), worse nor
at Kimberley (cough). When I'm going to bed, 'Where is she
to-night?' I'm saying. And when I'm getting up, 'Where is
she now?' I'm thinking. And in the dark midnight I'm asking
myself, 'Is she asleep, I wonder?' (Cough, cough.) Come
home quick, bogh; but not before you're well at all.'
... Never do to fetch her too soon, you know,” he said in a whisper over Philip's shoulder, with another nudge at his elbow.
Philip answered incoherently, and shrank under Pete's touch as if he had been burnt. The coughing continued; the dictating began again.