Page:"The Mummy" Volume 1.djvu/212

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198
THE MUMMY.

that he did not know exactly which way he was going; and, happening unfortunately to turn to the right when he should have gone to the left, to his infinite surprise he found himself in the kitchen, instead of his own study.

Absent as the doctor was, however, his attention was soon roused by the scene before him. Being, like many of his learned brotherhood, somewhat of a gourmand, his indignation was violently excited by finding the cook comfortably asleep on a sofa on one side of the room, whilst the meat intended for dinner, a meal it was then the fashion to take about noon, was as comfortably resting itself from its toils on the other. The chemical substitute for fire, which ought to have cooked it, having gone out, and the cook's nap precluding all reasonable expectation of its re-illumination, the doctor's wrath was kindled, though the fire was not, and in a violent rage he seized the gentle Celestina's shoulder, and shook her till she woke.

"Where am I?" exclaimed she, opening her eyes.

"Any where but where you ought to be," cried the doctor, in a fury. "Look, hussy!