The trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off, with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. "You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth as much as it wants fresh air." Then he dismisses her, lights his pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city--the one solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination.
"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?"
"I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times."
Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--" and is then cut short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it crushes her in the usual manner.

The trooper takes her bonnet off, with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. "You give the house almost a wholesome look." Then he dismisses her, lights his pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city - the one solitary flight of that old gentleman's imagination.
"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?"
"I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times."
Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing over the fire, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty guineas-" and is cut short by the flying cushion, which the visitor snatches from her face.
