I began
to lose patience, and was preparing to rid myself somewhat roughly of the
madman's grasp, when a new phenomenon occurred.
The patient on the sofa, whom I had judged well nigh moribund, and
consequently incapable of any effort whatever, all at once sat up with a
sudden jerk, and gave vent to a series of the most ear-piercing shrieks
that ever assailed human tympanum.
_"Oh! oh! Mon Dieu! je suis etouffee! levez-vous donc,
monsieur--n'avez-vous pas honte!"_
I started up--O misery!--I had fallen asleep, and my head, resting against
a pillar, had slipped down, depositing itself upon the expansive bosom of
a portly French dame in the next box, who seemed, by her vehement
exclamations, to be quite shaken from the balance of her propriety by the
unlooked-for burthen I had imposed upon her; whilst a _petit monsieur_
poured forth a string of _sacres_ and _sapristies_ upon my devoted head
with a volubility of utterance truly astonishing.
I gazed about me with troubled and lack-lustre eye. Every lorgnette in the
boxes was levelled at my miserable countenance; a sea of upturned and
derisive faces grinned at me from the pit, and the gods in Olympus
thundered from on high--"Turn him out; he's drunk!"
This was the unkindest cut of all--thus publicly to be accused of
intoxication, a vice of all others I have ever detested and eschewed.
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