A dying man----"
"Something," I said, "is happening to that moon."
It was in eclipse. Half the bright surface had been ominously obscured
since we took our seats. O---- scowled at the satellite, and went on:
"But I won't be carried out of this dirty hole (Bertolini's)--not feet
first. Would you mind my gasping another day or two at your place? Rolfe
has told me about it."
We moved him, with infinite trouble. The journey woke his dormant
capacities for invective. He cursed at the way they jolted him about; he
cursed himself into a collapse that day, and we thought it was all over.
Then he rallied, and became more abusive than before. Nothing was right.
Stairs being forbidden, the whole lower floor of the house was placed at
his disposal; the establishment was dislocated, convulsed; and still he
swore. He swore at me for the better part of a week; at the servants,
and even at the good doctor Malbranc, who came every morning in a
specially hired steam-launch to make that examination which always ended
in his saying to me: "You must humour him. Heart-patients are apt to be
irritable." Irritable was a mild term for this particular patient. His
appetite, meanwhile, began to improve.
It was soon evident that my cook had not the common sense to prepare his
invalid dishes; a second one was engaged. Then, my gardener and
sailor-boy being manifest idiots, it became necessary to procure an
extra porter to fetch the numberless odd things he needed from town
every day, and every hour of the day.
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