It seizes her in the moment of success, and she sits down rocking
herself to and fro, and gasping at intervals: 'O, my lungs is
awful bad! my lungs is wore away to cabbage-nets!' until the fit is
over. During its continuance she has had no power of sight, or any
other power not absorbed in the struggle; but as it leaves her, she
begins to strain her eyes, and as soon as she is able to
articulate, she cries, staring:
'Why, it's you!'
'Are you so surprised to see me?'
'I thought I never should have seen you again, deary. I thought
you was dead, and gone to Heaven.'
'Why?'
'I didn't suppose you could have kept away, alive, so long, from
the poor old soul with the real receipt for mixing it. And you are
in mourning too! Why didn't you come and have a pipe or two of
comfort? Did they leave you money, perhaps, and so you didn't want
comfort?'
' No.'
'Who was they as died, deary?'
'A relative.'
'Died of what, lovey?'
'Probably, Death.'
'We are short to-night!' cries the woman, with a propitiatory
laugh. 'Short and snappish we are! But we're out of sorts for
want of a smoke. We've got the all-overs, haven't us, deary? But
this is the place to cure 'em in; this is the place where the all-
overs is smoked off.'
'You may make ready, then,' replies the visitor, 'as soon as you
like.'
He divests himself of his shoes, loosens his cravat, and lies
across the foot of the squalid bed, with his head resting on his
left hand.
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