“I 've always noticed,” said Mrs. Partington, dropping
her voice to the key that people adopt when they are
disposed to be philosophical or moral — “I 've always
noticed that every year added to a man's life has a tenderness
to make him older, just as a man who goes a
journey finds, as he jogs on, that every mile-stone
brings him nearer to the place where he is going, and
further from where he started. I have n't got the exorbitance
of feeling that I had once, and I don't believe
I shall ever have it again, if I live to the age of Methusaleh,
which, heaven knows, I don't want to. And,
speaking of long life, I have n't any desire to live any
longer than the breath remains in my body, if it is n't
any more than eighty years. I would n't wish to be a
centurion, and the idea of one surviving her factories,
and becoming idiomatic, always gives me a disagreeable
sensoriousness. But whatever is to be will be, and
there is no knowing how a thing will turn out till it
takes place. Gracious goodness!” she exclaimed, as a
torpedo snapped on the floor by her feet; “you might
as well kill a body as frightem 'em to death. Isaac!”
Ike did n't respond; but, Mrs. P., hadst thou but glanced
through the window, thou mightst have seen a little
face, hid just below the window-sill, beaming with mirth
and jollity, and it is more than probable that a portion
of the coppers thou gavest the boy hath returned to
plague the investor.

p676-353

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