“Psha! you mistake my words, Monsieur l'Abbe” (yawning). “I mean—what cursed chocolate!—that I was dying for want of excitement. Not that I cared for dying; no, d—— me if I do!”
“WHEN you do, your Excellency means,” said the Abbe, a fat grey-haired Irishman, from the Irlandois College at Paris.
His Excellency did not laugh, nor understand jokes of any kind; he was of an undeviating stupidity, and only replied, “Sir, I mean what I say. I don't care for living: no, nor for dying either; but I can speak as well as another, and I'll thank you not to be correcting my phrases as if I were one of your cursed schoolboys, and not a gentleman of fortune and blood.”
Herewith the Count, who had uttered four sentences about himself (he never spoke of anything else), sunk back on his pillows again, quite exhausted by his eloquence. The Abbe, who had a seat and a table by the bedside, resumed the labours which had brought him into the room in the morning, and busied himself with papers, which occasionally he handed over to his superior for approval.
Presently Monsieur la Rose appeared.
“Here is a person with clothes from Mr. Beinkleider's. Will your Excellency see him, or shall I bid him leave the clothes?”
The Count was very much fatigued by this time; he had signed three papers, and read the first half-a-dozen lines of a pair of them.
“Bid the fellow come in, La Rose; and, hark ye, give me my wig: one must show one's self to be a gentleman before these scoundrels.” And he therefore mounted a large chestnut-coloured, orange-scented pyramid of horsehair, which was to awe the new-comer.
He was a lad of about seventeen, in a smart waistcoat and a blue riband: our friend Tom Billings, indeed. He carried under his arm the Count's destined breeches. He did not seem in the least awed, however, by his Excellency's appearance, but looked at him with a great degree of curiosity and boldness. In the same manner he surveyed the chaplain, and then nodded to him with a kind look of recognition.
“Where have I seen the lad?” said the father. “Oh, I have it! My good friend, you were at the hanging yesterday, I think?”