'The plague!' repeated the other. 'That's my grievance. I have
had the plague continually, ever since I have been here. I am like
a sane man shut up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of
the thing. I came here as well as ever I was in my life; but to
suspect me of the plague is to give me the plague. And I have had
it--and I have got it.'

'You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,' said the second speaker,
smiling.

'No. If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last
observation you would think of making. I have been waking up night
after night, and saying, NOW I have got it, NOW it has developed
itself, NOW I am in for it, NOW these fellows are making out their
case for their precautions. Why, I'd as soon have a spit put
through me, and be stuck upon a card in a collection of beetles, as
lead the life I have been leading here.'

'Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it's over,' urged a
cheerful feminine voice.

'Over!' repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any ill-
nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word
spoken by anybody else is a new injury. 'Over! and why should I
say no more about it because it's over?'

It was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles
was, like Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English
face which had been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty