But ours, as you say, my good friend,
is a strange way; and we strangely happen, sometimes, to come into the
knowledge of very strange events.'
He beckoned to Jonas to bring his chair nearer; and looking slightly
round, as if to remind him of the presence of Nadgett, whispered in his
ear.
From red to white; from white to red again; from red to yellow; then to
a cold, dull, awful, sweat-bedabbled blue. In that short whisper, all
these changes fell upon the face of Jonas Chuzzlewit; and when at last
he laid his hand upon the whisperer's mouth, appalled, lest any syllable
of what he said should reach the ears of the third person present, it
was as bloodless and as heavy as the hand of Death.
He drew his chair away, and sat a spectacle of terror, misery, and
rage. He was afraid to speak, or look, or move, or sit still. Abject,
crouching, and miserable, he was a greater degradation to the form he
bore, than if he had been a loathsome wound from head to heel.
His companion leisurely resumed his dressing, and completed it, glancing
sometimes with a smile at the transformation he had effected, but never
speaking once.
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