But don't ye be too sure always; don't be ye too sure, beauty!' Unwinking, cat-like, and intent, she presently adds: 'Not so potent as it once was?
Ah! Perhaps not at first.

You may be more right there.
Practice makes perfect.

I may have learned the secret how to make ye talk, deary.' He talks no more, whether or no.

Twitching in an ugly way from time to time, both as to his face and limbs, he lies heavy and silent.

The wretched candle burns down; the woman takes its expiring end between her fingers, lights another at it, crams the guttering frying morsel deep into the candlestick, and rams it home with the new candle, as if she were loading some ill-savoured and unseemly weapon of witchcraft; the new candle in its turn burns down; and still he lies insensible.