H. C. Bailey

“ Captain McBean went up to the room where Harry lay as white as his pillows. A woman was feeding him out of a cup. "You made it damned salt, your broth," says Harry, in a feeble disgust.
"'Tis what you lack, look you." Captain McBean sat himself on the bed and took the cup and waved the woman off. "'Tis the natural, hale salinity and the sanguineous part which you lose by a wound, and for lack of it you are thus faint. Therefore we do ever administer great possets of salt to the wounded, and—"
"And pickle me before I be dead," says Harry. "Be hanged to your jargon." ”

“ I put the villain to the question who set him on you. Bien he was hired to it by that fine fellow Waverton."
"Geoffrey!" Harry gasped.
"Even so. Now, Harry, what has Master Geoffrey Waverton against you? If he wanted to murder your father I could understand it. That affair at Pontoise is matter enough for a life or two. Though he should take it gentlemanly. But why must he murder you?"
"I am not dead yet," said Harry, and his mouth set.
Captain McBean laughed. "Not by fifty year:" and he contemplated Harry's pale drawn face with benign approval. "But why does Mr. Waverton want you dead now?" ”

“ Boyce."
Harry fingered a pretty toy of a watch circled with diamonds, and wrought with a monogram in diamonds and sapphires. "Poor lad," says he.
"It's his own piece and was his father's, I believe. Pardieu, sir, there's many will envy you."
Harry's head went back on its pillows. "It's a queer taste."
"Mr. Boyce, you may count upon it that when His Majesty is established in power, he—"
"He will have as bad a memory as the rest of his family. Bah, what does it matter? You are talking of the millennium."
"You will talk, will you?" says McBean. "I'll gag you, mordieu, if you answer me back again. ”