“Pooh! nothing but a trick I learned in Paris,” said he; “it's very convenient to be able to put a person to sleep now and again.”
“Could you put any one to sleep?”
“Any one I wanted to.”
“Do it to me then,” she begged him.
“What use, my girl? Don't you do all I wish without?”
She grimaced, and picked at the bed-quilt laughing, then rose and stood in front of him, her round red arms clasped behind her head. But he only glanced at her with professional interest.
“You should get married, my dear, without delay. Pierre would be ready enough, no doubt?”—“Bah! Pierre or annuder—if I brought a weddin' portion. You don't tink to provide me wid one, I s'pose?”—“You know that I can't. But why don't you get it from the Tourtels? You've earned it before this, I dare swear.”
It was now that the housekeeper came up, and took down to Louisa Poidevin the message given above. But first she was detained by Owen, to assist him in getting his patient into bed.
The old man woke up during the process, very peevish, very determined to get to town. “Well, you can't go till to-morrow den,” said Mrs. Tourtel; “your cousin has gone home, an' now you've got to go to sleep, so be quiet.” She dropped all semblance of respect in her tones. “Come, lie down!” she said sharply, “or I'll send Margot to tickle your feet.” He shivered and whimpered into silence beneath the clothes.
“Margot tells him 'bout witches, an ogres, an scrapels her fingures 'long de wall, till he tinks dere goin' to fly 'way wid him,” she explained to Owen in an aside. “Oh, I know Margot,” he answered laconically, and thought, “May I never lie helpless within reach of such fingers as hers.”