Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/55

Rh yellow face, and looked so parched and brittle that strangers could not help thinking that it would do her good if she were soaked in water for a year, in order to soften her a little. Whenever she moved she crackled, and one was in constant dread of seeing one of her wizen-looking limbs break off short, like the branch of a dead tree. When she spoke it was in a hard, shrill voice, like cricket; and being dressed in a faded brown silk, what with her voice and attenuated body,she was not unlike that noisy insect. She crackled into Brian's sitting room with the Argus and coffee, and a look of dismay came over her stony little face as she saw his altered looks.

"Dear me, sir," she chirped out in her shrill voice, as she placed her burden on the table, "are you took bad?"

Brian shook his head.

"Want of sleep, that's all, Mrs. Sampson," he answered, unfolding the Argus.

"Ah! that's because ye ain't got enough blood in yer 'ead," said Mrs. Sampson, wisely, for she had her own ideas on the subject of health. "If you ain't got blood you ain't got sleep."

Brian looked at her as she said this, for there seemed such an obvious want of blood in her veins that he wondered if she had ever slept in all her life.

"There was my father's brother, which, of course, makes 'im my uncle," went on the landlady, pouring out a cup of coffee for Brian, "an' the blood 'e 'ad was something astoundin', which it made 'im sleep that long as they 'ad to draw pints from 'im afore 'e'd wake in the mornin'."

Brian had the Argus before his face, and under its friendly cover laughed quietly to himself at the very tall story Mrs. Sampson was telling.

"His blood poured out like a river," went on the landlady, still drawing from the rich stores of her imagination, "and the doctor was struck dumb with astonishment at seein' the Niagerer which burst from 'im—but I'm not so full-blooded myself."

Fitzgerald again stifled a laugh, and wondered that Mrs. Sampson was not afraid of being treated in the same manner as Ananias and Sapphira. However, he said nothing, but merely intimated that if she would leave the room he would take his breakfast.