Privately, I wasn't surprised to hear it, though I didn't say so.
"What was it like—the going off under the fumes?" asked someone else.
"It was like being rocked to sleep," said Mr. H——, in a sentimental tone. "And I heard church bells ringing, and I said to myself, 'They are ringing for my funeral. My poor, poor mother! And the guv'nor, too! This will bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'"
"Please don't talk of it!" cried Veronica, wiping her eyes. "I feel (I don't know if you do, E——?) that this should be a lesson to us all to be more charitable to each other. I didn't believe, Mr. H——, and I must freely confess it, that you had it in you to feel and speak like this! It shows how we may be mistaken."
"I don't wear my heart on my sleeve," replied the hero, languidly, leaning back in his chair. "I knew you all misunderstood me, but I made up my mind to bear it, certain that the truth must out, even though I didn't give a potato-masher to the establishment."
"And," said I, "truth is stranger than fiction any day."
The hero glanced sharply at me, for I was sitting gazing up at our roof-tree, and now and then I sniffed.
After a pause I said, sniffing again:—
"Does anyone smell a very strong smell of some gas—hydrocyanic gas, I suppose? Where is it coming from? We pasted up all the windows and doors," I added, rising from my chair.
Everybody now sniffed in turn, and all declared that the smell grew stronger and stronger.