'No more of yesterday's howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?'
'I have heard none.' 'Then you may be sure there is none. When these people howl, they howl
to be heard.' 'Most people do, I suppose.'
'Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.' 'Do you mean the Marseilles people?'
'I mean the French people. They're always at it. As to Marseilles, we
know what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the
world that was ever composed. It couldn't exist without allonging and
marshonging to something or other--victory or death, or blazes, or
something.'
The speaker, with a whimsical good humour upon him all the time, looked
over the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of Marseilles; and
taking up a determined position by putting his hands in his pockets and
rattling his money at it, apostrophised it with a short laugh. '
Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you,
I think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful
business, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!'
'Tiresome enough,' said the other.
'But we shall be out to-day.' 'Out to-day!' repeated the first. 'It's almost an aggravation of the
enormity, that we shall be out to-day. Out! What have we ever been in
for?' 'For no very strong reason, I must say. But as we come from the East,
and as the East is the country of the plague--'
'The plague!' repeated the other. 'That's my grievance. I have had the
plague continually, ever since I have been here. I am like a sane man
shut up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of the thing. I came
here as well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague
is to give me the plague. And I have had it--and I have got it.'
'You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,' said the second speaker, smiling.
'No. If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last observation
you would think of making. I have been waking up night after night, and
saying, NOW I have got it, NOW it has developed itself, NOW I am in for
it, NOW these fellows are making out their case for their precautions.
Why, I'd as soon have a spit put through me, and be stuck upon a card in
a collection of beetles, as lead the life I have been leading here.'
'Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it's over,' urged a cheerful
feminine voice. 'Over!' repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any
ill-nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word
spoken by anybody else is a new injury. 'Over! and why should I say no
more about it because it's over?'