"You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. Go!" said the
Hermit, in an imperious and angry tone.

"Come, come!" returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed. "This is a
little too much. You are not going to call yourself clean? Look at your
legs. And as to these being your premises:--they are in far too
disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything
else."

The Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast himself on his
bed of soot and cinders.

"I am not going," said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him; "you won't
get rid of me in that way. You had better come and talk."

"I won't talk," said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards
the window.

"Then I will," said Mr. Traveller. "Why should you take it ill that I
have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly
indecent life? When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely
there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took it."

After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to the
barred window.

"What? You are not gone?" he said, affecting to have supposed that he
was.