Sometimes his imperturbability exasperated me.

I might just as well try to taunt a poker or sting a fire-shovel into resentment of personal abuse.
"I'll see you hanged, drawn, and quartered before I'll go to bed," I declared.
"Very good, sir." The gaunt wretch was carrying me.

"But I think you might lie down for half an hour before dinner." He deposited me ignominiously on the bed and left the room.

In about ten minutes Dr.Cliffe, my inveterate adversary who has kept life in me for many a year, came in with his confounded pink smiling face.
"What's this I hear?
Been overdoing it ?" "What the deuce are you doing here ?" I cried.

"Go away.