I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his mortification or vexation, had given me a sensation which halfcounteracted the ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce là tout?"
Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion; my attention was again amusingly arrested.
Owing to some little accidental movement—I think I dropped my thimble on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle—M. Paul became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to give him ease.
I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived to cross the channel, and land on British ground; but there I found him when I began to listen.
Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room—a glance which scathed, or was intended to scathe,
