Doctor Luke of the Labrador

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"I make no doubt o' that, mum," said Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, to whom, in
the kitchen, that night, she propounded her strange philosophy; "but you
see, mum, '_tis_ the way o' the world, an' folks just _will_ stick t'
their idees, an', mum," he went on, with a propitiating smile, "as you
is only a woman, why----"

"_Only_ a woman!" she roared, sitting up with a jerk. "Does you say----"

"Why, ay, mum!" Skipper Tommy put in, mildly. "You _isn't_ a man, is
you?"

She sat dumb and transfixed.

"Well, then," said Skipper Tommy, in a mildly argumentative way, "'tis
as I says. You must do as the women does, an' not as a man might want
to----"

"Mm-a-an!" she mocked, in a way that withered the poor skipper. "No, I
isn't a man! Was you hearin' me _say_ I was? Oh, you _wasn't_, wasn't
you? An' is you thinkin' I'd _be_ a man an I could? What!" she roared.
"You isn't _sure_ about that, isn't you? Oh, my! Isn't you! Well, well!
He isn't _sure_," appealing to me, with a shaking under lip. "Oh, my!
There's a man--_he's_ a man for you--there's a _man_--puttin' a poor
woman t' scorn! Oh, my!" she wailed, bursting into tears, as all women
will, when put to the need of it. "Oh, dear!"

Skipper Tommy was vastly concerned for her. "My poor woman," he began,
"don't you be cryin', now. Come, now----"

"Oh, his _poor_ woman," she interrupted, bitingly. "_His_ poor woman!
Oh, my! An' I s'pose you thinks 'tis the poor woman's place t' work in
the splittin' stage an' not on the deck of a fore-an'-after. You does,
does you? Ay, 'tis what I _s'posed_!" she said, with scorn. "An' if
_you_ married _me_," she continued, transfixing the terrified skipper
with a fat forefinger, "I s'pose you'd be wantin' me t' split the fish
you cotched. Oh, you would, would you? Oh, my! But I'll have you t'
know, Skipper Thomas Lovejoy," with a sudden and alarming change of
voice, "that I've the makin's of a better ship's-master than _you_. An'
by the Lord Harry! I'm a better _man_," saying which, she leaped from
her chair with surprising agility, and began to roll up her sleeves,
"an' I'll prove it on your wisage! Come on with you!" she cried,
striking a belligerent attitude, her fists waving in a fashion most
terrifying. "Come on an you dare!"

Skipper Tommy dodged behind the table in great haste and horror.

"Oh, dear!" cried she. "He won't! Oh, my! _There's_ a man for you. An'
I'm but a woman, is I. His poor woman. Oh, _his_ woman! Look you here,
Skipper Thomas Lovejoy, you been stickin' wonderful close alongside o'
me since you come t' Wolf Cove, an' I'm not quite knowin' what tricks
you've in mind. But I'm thinkin' you're like all the men, an' I'll have
you t' know this, that if 'tis marriage with me you're thinkin' on----"

But Skipper Tommy gasped and wildly fled.

"Ha!" she snorted, triumphantly. "I was _thinkin_' I was a better man
than he!"

"'Tis a shame," said I, "t' scare un so!"

Whereat, without uttering a sound, she laughed until the china clinked
and rattled on the shelves, and I thought the pots and pans would come
clattering from their places. And then she strutted the floor for all
the world like a rooster once I saw in the South.

VIII

THE BLIND and The BLIND

Ah, well! at once she set about the cure of my mother. And she went
tripping about the house--and tripping she went, believe me, stout as
she was, as lightsome as one of Skipper Tommy's fairies--with a manner
so large and confident, a glance so compelling, that 'twas beyond us to
doubt her power or slight her commands. First of all she told my mother,
repeating it with patience and persuasive insistence, that she would be
well in six days, and must believe the words true, else she would never
be well, at all. And when my mother had brightened with this new hope,
the woman, muttering words without meaning, hung a curious brown object
about her neck, which she said had come from a holy place and possessed
a strange and powerful virtue for healing. My mother fondled it, with
glistening eyes and very tenderly, and, when the doctor-woman had gone
out, whispered to me that it was a horse-chestnut, and put her in mind
of the days when she dwelt in Boston, a little maid.

"But 'tis not healin' you," I protested, touching a tear which had
settled in the deep hollow of her cheek. "'Tis makin' you sad."

"Oh, no!" said she. "'Tis making me very happy."

"But you is cryin'," said I. "An' I'm thinkin' 'tis because you wisht
you was in Boston."

"No, no!" she cried, her lip trembling. "I'm not wishing that. I've
_never_ wished _that_! I'm glad your father found me and took me where
he wished. Oh, I'm glad of that--glad he found and loved me--glad I gave
myself to his dear care! Why, were I in Boston, to-day, I would not have
my dear, big David, your father, lad, and I would not have your sister,
and I would not have----"

"Me?" I put in, archly.

"Ay," she said, with infinite tenderness, "_you,_ Davy, dear!"

For many days, thereafter, the doctor-woman possessed our house, and
I've no doubt she was happy in her new estate--at table, at any rate,
for there she was garrulent and active, and astoundingly active, with
less of garrulence, on feast days, when my father had pork provided. And
she had a way with the maids in the kitchen that kept the young men from
the door (which my sister never could manage); and I have since been led
to think 'twas because she sought to work her will on Skipper Tommy
Lovejoy, undisturbed by the clatter and quick eyes of young folk. For
Skipper Tommy, to my increasing alarm and to the panic of the twins, who
wished for no second mother, still frequented the kitchen, when the
day's work was done, and was all the while in a mood so downcast, of a
manner so furtive, that it made me sad to talk with him. But by day our
kitchen was intolerable with smells--intolerable to him and to us all
(save to my sister, who is, and ever has been, brave)--while the
doctor-woman hung over the stove, working with things the sight of which
my stomach would not brook, but which my mother took in ignorance,
hoping they would cure her. God knows what medicines were mixed! I would
not name the things I saw. And the doctor-woman would not even have us
ask what use she made of them: nor have I since sought to know; 'tis
best, I think, forgotten.

But my mother got no better.

"Skipper David," said the doctor-woman, at last, "I'm wantin' four
lump-fish."

"Four lump-fish!" my father wondered. "Is you?"

"Oh, my!" she answered, tartly. "Is I? Yes, I is. An' I'll thank you t'
get un an' ask no questions. For _I'm_ mindin' _my_ business, an' I'll
thank _you_ t' mind _yours_. An' if _you_ thinks _you_ can do the
doctorin'----"

"I'm not seekin' t' hinder you," said my father, flushing. "You go on
with your work. I'll pay; but----"

"Oh, will you?" she cried, shrilly. "He'll pay, says he. Oh, my! He'll
_pay_! Oh, dear!"

"Come, now, woman!" said my father, indignantly. "I've had you come, an'
I'll stand by what you does. I'll get the lump-fish; but 'tis the last
cure you'll try. If it fails, back you go t' Wolf Cove."

"Oh, my!" said she, taken aback. "Back I goes, does I! An' t' Wolf Cove?
Oh, dear!"

My father sent word to the masters of the cod-traps, which were then set
off the heads, that such sculpin as got in the nets by chance must be
saved for him. He was overwrought, as I have said, by sorrow, overcome,
it may be, by the way this woman had. And soon he had for her four
green, prickly-skinned, jelly-like, big-bellied lump-fish, which were
not appetizing to look upon, though I've heard tell that starving folk,
being driven to it, have eaten them. My sister would not be driven from
the kitchen, though the woman was vehement in anger, but held to it that
she must know the character of the dose my mother was to take. So they
worked together--the doctor-woman scowling darkly--until the medicine
was ready: which was in the late evening of that day. Then they went to
my mother's room to administer the first of it.

"'Tis a new medicine," my mother said, with a smile, when she held the
glass in her hand.

"Ay," crooned the doctor-woman, "drink it, now, my dear."

My mother raised the glass to her lips. "And what is it?" she asked,
withdrawing the glass with a shudder.

"Tut, tut!" the doctor-woman exclaimed. "'Tis but a soup. 'Twill do you
good."

"I'm sure it will," my mother gently said. "But I wonder what it is."

Again she raised the glass with a wry face. But my sister stayed her
hand.

"I'll not have you take it," said she, firmly, "without knowin' what it
is."

The doctor-woman struck her arm away. "Leave the woman drink it!" she
screamed, now in a gust of passion.

"What's--this you're--giving me?" my mother stammered, looking upon the
glass in alarm and new disgust.

"'Tis the eyes o' four lump-fish," said my sister.

My mother dropped the glass, so that the contents were spilled over the
coverlet, and fell back on the pillows, where she lay white and still.

"Out with you!" said my sister to the doctor-woman. "I'll have no more
o' your cures!"

"Oh, my!" shrilled the woman, dropping into her most biting manner.
"_She_ won't have no more o' my cures! Oh, dear, she----"

"Out with you!" cried my sister, as she smartly clapped her hands under
the woman's nose. "Out o' the house with you!"

"Oh, 'tis _out_ with me, is it? Out o' the _house_ with me! Oh, dear!
Out o' the house with _me_! I'll have you t' know----"

My sister ignored the ponderous fist raised against her. She stamped her
small foot, her eyes flashing, the blood flushing her cheeks and brow.

"Out you go!" she cried. "_I'm_ not afeared o' you!"

I stood aghast while the doctor-woman backed through the door. Never
before had I known my gentle sister to flash and flush with angry
passion. Nor have I since.

* * * * *

Next morning, my father paid the woman from Wolf Cove a barrel of flour,
with which she was ill content, and traded her two barrels more for the
horse-chestnut, which my mother wished to keep lying on her breast,
because it comforted her. To Skipper Tommy Lovejoy fell the lot of
taking the woman back in the punt; for, as my father said, 'twas he that
brought her safely, and, surely, the one who could manage that could be
trusted to get her back without accident.

"An' 'tis parlous work, lad," said the skipper, with an anxious shrug,
while we waited on the wharf for the woman to come. "I'm very much
afeared. Ay," he added, frowning, "I is that!"

"I'm not knowin' why," said I, "for the wind's blowin' fair from the
sou'west, an' you'll have a fine time t' Wolf Cove."

"'Tis not that," said he, quietly. "Hist!" jerking his head towards our
house, where the woman yet was. "'Tis _she_!"

"I'd not be afeared o' _she_," said I. "'Twas but last night," I added,
proudly, "my sister gave her her tea in a mug."

"Oh, ay," said he, "I heared tell o' that. But 'tis not t' the point.
Davy, lad," in an undertone which betrayed great agitation, "she've her
cap set for a man, an' she's desperate."

"Ay?" said I.

He bent close to my ear. "An' she've her eye on _me_!" he whispered.

"Skipper Tommy," I earnestly pleaded, "don't you go an' do it."

"Well, lad," he answered, pulling at his nose, "the good Lard made me
what I is. I'm not complainin' o' the taste He showed. No, no! I would
not think o' doin' that. But----"

"He made you kind," I broke in, hotly, "an' such as good folk love."

"I'm not knowin' much about that, Davy. The good Lard made me as He
willed. But I'm an obligin' man. I've turned out, Davy, most wonderful
obligin'. I'm always doin' what folks wants me to. Such men as me, lad,"
he went on, precisely indicating the weakness of his tender character,
"is made that way. An' if she tells me she's a lone woman, and if she
begins t' cry, what is I to do? An' if I has t' pass me word, Davy, t'
stop her tears! Eh, lad? Will you tell me, David Roth, _what_ is I t'
do?"

"Turn the punt over," said I, quickly. "They's wind enough for that,
man! An' 'tis your only chance, Skipper Tommy--'tis the only chance
_you_ got--if she begins t' cry."

He was dispirited. "I wisht," he said, sadly, "that the Lard hadn't made
me _quite_ so obligin'!"

"'Tis too bad!"

"Ay," he sighed, "'tis too bad I can't trust meself in the company o'
folk that's givin' t' weepin'."

"I'll have the twins pray for you," I ventured.

"Do!" he cried, brightening. "'Tis a grand thought! An' do you tell them
two dear lads that I'll never give in--no, lad, their father'll never
give in t' that woman--till he's just _got_ to."

"But, Skipper Tommy," said I, now much alarmed, so hopeless was his
tone, stout as his words were, "tell my father you're not wantin' t' go.
Sure, he can send Elisha Turr in your stead."

"Ay," said he, "but I _is_ wantin' t' go. That's it. I'm thinkin' all
the time o' the book, lad. I'm wantin' t' make that book a good book.
I'm wantin' t' learn more about cures."

"I'm thinkin' _her_ cures isn't worth much," said I.

He patted me on the head. "You is but a lad," said he, indulgent with my
youth, "an' your judgment isn't well growed yet. Some o' they cures is
bad, no doubt," he added, "an' some is good. I wants no bad cures in my
book. I'll not _have_ them there. But does you think I can't _try_ un
all on _meself_ afore I has un _put_ in the book?"

* * * * *

When the punt was well through North Tickle, on a free, freshening wind,
I sped to the Rat Hole to apprise the twins of their father's unhappy
situation, and to beg of them to be constant and importunate in prayer
that he might be saved from the perils of that voyage. Then, still
running as fast as my legs would go, I returned to our house, where,
again, I found the shadow and the mystery, and the hush in all the
rooms.

"Davy!"

"Ay, Bessie," I answered. "'Tis I."

"Our mother's wantin' you, dear."

I tiptoed up the stair, and to the bed where my mother lay, and, very
softly, I laid my cheek against her lips.

"My sister sent me, mum," I whispered.

"Yes," she sighed. "I'm--just wanting you."

Her arm, languid and light, stole round my waist.

IX

A WRECK on The THIRTY DEVILS

Fog--thick, stifling, clammy! A vast bank of it lay stranded on the
rocks of our coast: muffling voices, making men gasp. In a murky cloud
it pressed against my mother's windows. Wharves, cottages, harbour
water, great hills beyond--the whole world--had vanished. There was
nothing left but a patch of smoking rock beneath. It had come--a grey
cloud, drifting low and languidly--with a lazy draught of wind from the
east, which had dragged it upon the coast, spread it broadcast and
expired of the effort to carry it into the wilderness.

"Wonderful thick, b'y!" was the salutation for the day.

"'S mud," was the response.

Down went the barometer--down, down, slowly, uncompromisingly down!
'Twas shocking to the nerves to consult it.

"An' I'm tellin' you this, lads," said a man on my father's wharf,
tugging uneasily at his sou'wester, "that afore midnight you'll be
needin' t' glue your hair on!"

This feeling of apprehension was everywhere--on the roads, in the
stages, in the very air. No man of our harbour put to sea. With the big
wind coming, 'twas no place for punt, schooner or steamer. The waters
off shore were set with traps for the unwary and the unknowing--the
bluffs veiled by mist, the drift ice hidden, the reefs covered up. In a
gale of wind from the east there would be no escape.

* * * * *

Through the dragging day my mother had been restless and in pain. In the
evening she turned to us.

"I'm tired," she whispered.

Tired? Oh, ay! She was tired--very, very tired! It was near time for her
to rest. She was sadly needing that.

"An' will you try t' sleep, now?" my sister asked.

"Ay," she answered, wanly, "I'll sleep a bit, now, if I can. Where's
Davy?"

"Sure, mama," said I, in surprise, "I'm sittin' right by the bed!"

"Ah, Davy!" she whispered, happily, stretching out a hand to touch me.
"My little son!"

"An' I been sittin' here all the time!" said I.

"All the time?" she said. "But I've been so sick, dear, I haven't
noticed much. And 'tis so dark."

"No, mum; 'tis not so very. 'Tis thick, but 'tis not so very dark. 'Tis
not lamp-lightin' time yet."

"How strange!" she muttered. "It seems so very dark. Ah, well! Do you go
out for a run in the air, dear, while your mother sleeps. I'm thinking
I'll be better--when I've had a little sleep."

My sister busied herself with the pillows and coverlet; and she made all
soft and neat, that my mother might rest the better for it.

"You're so tender with me, dear," said my mother "Every day I bless God
for my dear daughter."

My sister kissed my mother. "Hush!" she said. "Do you go t' sleep, now,
little mother. Twill do you good."

"Yes," my mother sighed, "for I'm--so very--tired."

* * * * *

When she had fallen asleep, I slung my lantern over my arm and scampered
off to the Rat Hole to yarn with the twins, making what speed I could in
the fog and untimely dusk, and happy, for the moment, to be free of the
brooding shadow in our house. The day was not yet fled; but the light
abroad--a sullen greyness, splashed with angry red in the west, where
the mist was thinning--was fading fast and fearfully. And there was an
ominous stirring of wind in the east: at intervals, storm puffs came
swirling over the hills from the sea; and they ran off inland like mad,
leaving the air of a sudden once more stagnant. Fresh and cool they
were--grateful enough, indeed, blowing through the thick, dead dusk--but
sure warning, too, of great gusts to come. We were to have weather--a
gale from the northeast, by all the lore of the coast--and it would be a
wild night, with the breakers of Raven Rock and the Thirty Black Devils
leaping high and merrily in the morning. As I ran down the last hill,
with an eye on the light glowing in the kitchen window of Skipper Tommy
Lovejoy's cottage, I made shift to hope that the old man had made
harbour from Wolf Cove, but thought it most unlikely.

He had.

"You got home, Skipper Tommy," I cried, shouldering the door shut
against a gust of wind, "an' I'm glad o' that! 'Tis goin' t' blow most
awful, I'm thinkin'."

My welcome was of the gloomiest description. I observed that the twins,
who lay feet to feet on the corner-seat, did not spring to meet me, but
were cast down; and that Skipper Tommy, himself, sitting over the fire
with a cup of tea on the table at his elbow, was glum as a deacon.

"Oh," said he, looking up with the ghost of a laugh, "I got in. You
wasn't frettin' about _me_, was you, Davy? Oh, don't you ever go
frettin' about me, lad, when--ah, well!--when they's nothin' but fog t'
fear. Sure, 'twasn't no trouble for _me_ t' find North Tickle in the
fog. Ah, me! If 'twas only that! Sure, I bumped her nose agin the point
o' God's Warning, an' rattled her bones a bit, but, lad, me an' the punt
is used t' little things like that. Oh, ay," he repeated, dismally, "I
got _in_."

Evidently the worst had happened. "Did you?" said I, blankly. "An' was
you--was you--_cotched_?"

"Is you thinkin' o' _she_, Davy?" he answered. "Well," in a melancholy
drawl, smoothing his stubble of grey beard, his forehead deeply
furrowed, "I'm not admittin' I is. But, Davy," he added, "she cast a
hook, an'--well, I--I nibbled. Yes, I did, lad! I went an' nibbled!"

One of the twins started up in alarm. "Hark!" he whispered.

We listened--but heard nothing. A gust of wind rattled the window, and,
crying hoarsely, swept under the house. There was nothing more than
that.

"Hist!" said the twin.

We heard only the ominous mutter and sigh of the gust departing.

"Jacky," said the skipper, anxiously, "what was you thinkin' you heared,
b'y?"

Jacky fidgetted in his seat. "'Twas like the mail-boat's whistle, zur,"
he answered, "but 'twas sort o' hoarser."

"Why, lad," said the skipper, "the mail-boat's not handy by two hundred
miles! 'Twas but the wind."

But he scratched his head in a puzzled way.

"Ay, maybe, zur," Jacky replied, still alert for a sound from the sea,
"but 'twas not _like_ the wind."

Skipper Tommy held up his hand. "Ay," said he, when we had listened a
long time, "'twas but the wind."

"Ay," said we all, "'twas but the wind."

"Ah, well, Davy," the skipper resumed, "she cast a hook, as I was
sayin', an' I nibbled."

The twins groaned in concert.

"But the good Lard, Davy," the skipper went on, "had sent a switch o'
wind from the sou'west. So they was a bit o' lop on the sea, an' 'twas
t' that I turned, when the case got desperate. An' desperate it soon
got, lad. Ah, indeed! 'long about Herring Head it got fair desperate.
'Skipper Thomas,' says she, 'we're gettin' old, you an' me,' says she.
'Sure, mum,' says I, 'not _you_, mum! I'll never give in t' that,' says
I."

Our faces fell.

"'Twas what I done," the skipper persisted, with an air of guilt and
remorse. "I just, felt like doin' it, an' so I done it. 'I'll never give
in to it, mum,' says I, 'that _you're_ gettin' old.'"

I groaned with the twins--and Skipper Tommy made a dismal quartette of
it--and the wind, rising sharply at that moment, contributed a chorus of
heartrending noises.

"Ay," the skipper continued, "'twas a sad mistake. 'Twas floutin'
Providence t' say a word like that to a woman like she. But I just felt
like it. Then, 'Oh, dear,' says she, ''tis barb'rous lonely t' Wolf
Cove,' says she. ''Tis too bad, mum,' says I. An' I throwed the bow o'
the punt plump into a wave, Davy, lad, an' shipped a bucket o' water.
'An',' says she, 'it must be lonely for you, Skipper Thomas,' says she,
'livin' there at the Rat Hole.'"

Skipper Tommy paused to sigh and tweak his nose; and he tweaked so often
and sighed so long that I lost patience.

"An' what did you do then?" I demanded.

"Took in more water, Davy," he groaned, "for they wasn't nothin' else I
could think of. 'An',' says she, 'is it not lonely, Skipper Thomas,'
says she, 'at the Rat Hole?' 'No, mum,' says I, takin' aboard another
bucket or two, 'for I've the twins,' says I. With that she put her
kerchief to her eyes, Davy, an' begun t' sniffle. An' t' relieve me
feelin's, lad, for I was drove desperate, I just _had_ t' let the top of
a wave fall over the bow: which I done, Davy, an' may the Lard forgive
me! An' I'm not denyin' that 'twas a sizable wave she took."

He stared despondently at the floor.

"She gathered up her skirts," he went on. "An', 'Ah, Skipper Thomas,'
says she, 'twins,' says she, 'is nothin'. 'Sure,' says she, 'twins is no
good on a cold winter's night.' I'm not denyin', Davy," said the
skipper, solemnly, looking me straight in the eye, "that she scared me
with that. I'm not denyin' that me hand slipped. I'm not denyin' that I
put the tiller over a _wee bit_ too far--maybe a foot--maybe a foot an'
a half, in the excitement o' the moment--I isn't quite sure. No, no! I'm
far, lad, from denyin' that I near swamped the boat. ''Tis gettin'
rough,' says she. 'Ay,' says I, 'an' we'll be gettin' along a deal
better, mum,' says I, 'if you bail.' So I kep' her bailin', Davy," the
skipper concluded, with a long sigh and a sad wag of the head, "from
Herring Head t' Wolf Cove. An', well, lad, she didn't quite cotch me,
for she hadn't no time t' waste, but, as I was sayin', she cast a hook."

"You're well rid o' she," said I.

Timmie rose to look out of the window. "Hear the wind!" said he, turning
in awe, while the cottage trembled under the rush of a gust. "My! but
'twill blow, the night!"

"Ah, Timmie," sighed the skipper, "what's a gale o' wind t' the snares
o' women!"

"Women!" cried I. "Sure, she'll trouble you no more. You're well rid o'
she."

"But I _isn't_ rid o' she, Davy," he groaned, "an' that's what's
troublin' the twins an' me. I isn't rid o' she, for I've heared tell
she've some l'arnin' an' can write a letter."

"Write!" cried I. "She won't write."

"Ah, Davy," sighed the skipper, his head falling over his breast,
"you've no knowledge o' women. They never gives in, lad, that they're
beat. They never _knows_ they're beat. An' that one, lad, wouldn't know
it if she was told!"

"Leave her write so much as she wants," said I. "'Twill do you no harm."

"No harm?" said he, looking up. "No harm in writin'?"

"No," said I. "Sure, you can't read!"

The twins leaped from the corner-seat and emitted a shrill and joyful
whoop. Skipper Tommy threw back his head, opened his great mouth in
silent laughter, and slapped his thigh with such violence that the noise
was like a pistol shot.

"No more I can," he roared, "an' I'm too old t' l'arn!"

Laughter--a fit of it--seized him. It exploded like a thunder-clap, and
continued, uproariously, interrupted by gasps, when he lost his breath,
and by groans, when a stitch made him wince. There was no resisting it.
The twins doubled up in the corner-seat, miserably screaming, their
heels waving in the air; and Davy Roth collapsed on the floor, gripping
his sides, his eyes staring, his mouth wide open, venting his mirth, the
while, in painful shrieks. Skipper Tommy was himself again--freed o' the
nets o' women--restored to us and to his own good humour--once again
boon comrade of the twins and me! He jumped from his chair; and with a
"Tra-la-la!" and a merry "Hi-tum-ti-iddle-dee-um!" he fell into a
fantastic dance, thumping the boards with his stockinged feet, advancing
and retreating with a flourish, bowing and balancing to an imaginary
partner, all in a fashion so excruciatingly exaggerated that the twins
screamed, "Don't, father!" and Davy Roth moaned, "Oh, stop, zur, please,
zur!" while the crimson, perspiring, light-footed, ridiculously
bow-legged old fellow still went cavorting over the kitchen floor.

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