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Then she clapped her hands, and the negro servant came and at her command dragged away the carcass, wiped the bloody floor, and brought a basin of clear water and a linen cloth to bathe the scratch on her hand. When he had gone she made me bind it up with her broidered kerchief and stamped her foot because I drew the knot over-tight. "Doña Orosia," I said, when I had done it to her liking.
He continued to trot along, holding steadily to the gait, subtly aware of the slackened rein and of the wrenched and loosened girdle, until, with the coming of noon, the blessed relief from the weight of the man, the ill-fitting saddle, and the over-tight girth, came also an agreeable surprise.
Again, a plate is wrenched, and some villainously-made rivets jump out of their places like buttons from an over-tight bodice; in ten minutes the vessel is wallowing, ready for her last plunge; and very likely the crew have not even the forlorn chance of taking to the boats.
"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the differences by which the observer emeritus distinguishes them women are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist.
Perhaps it was well that this plump matron in the over-tight skirt or that miss mincing on four-inch heels could not hear the caustic comment of the white-haired four sitting so mildly on the bench at the side of the path. Their talk, stray as it might, always came back to two subjects. They seemed never to tire of them. Three talked of their daughters-in-law, and bitterness rasped their throats.
And the two ladies' necks were screwed about their over-tight collars, to give Charm the verdict of their disapproval. "Monsieur le Cure, they are passing you the fish!" cried the stouter, more aggressive parishioner, who boasted a truculent mustache.
The weather had become extremely cold, but the poorhouse poet went on his rounds, persisting in being dressed as in the autumn. It had been snowing all night, and the cold was excessive. Johanson was awakened by an unusual chill in the air. A long point of snow lay along the floor of his room, as it had drifted in under the not over-tight door. He dressed and hurried out.
The Fool, whose son Ruggiero meant to engage, had earned his title in bygone days by dancing an English hornpipe for the amusement of his companions, the Gull owed his to the singular length and shape of his nose, and the Cripple had in early youth worn a pair of over-tight boots on Sundays, whereby he had limped sadly on the first day of every week, for nearly two years.
Those last words in particular did not ring true. There lay in her manner, just out of sight, I felt, this suggestion of the exact reverse of unrest, shrinking, almost of anxiety. Certain small strings in her seemed over-tight. "Keyed-up" was the slang expression that crossed my mind. I looked rather searchingly into her face as she was telling me this.
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