The Price He Paid — page 261: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

252 MAX INTERVIEWS COUNCILOR MOSER. Moser. “To speak of it isan insult. My daughter is the betrothed of Heaven.” “I beg your pardon, she is my _ betrothed,” asserted Max, manfully. “Heaven can wait, I can’t. After fifty years of conjugal happiness, I have no objection to surrender Agnes to a higher lot. Until then, I claim her as mine, and mine alone.” : “Do you mean to turn my child’s sacred vocation into ridicule?” exclaimed the old genleman, kindled to fresh wrath. “I have long known you to be an infidel, an atheist, a——” his voice forsook him, he panted for breath, and grasped at his neckcloth with both hands. “Do not excite yourself in this manner,” said the young doctor, warningly. “These violent fits of emotion are most dangerous at your age, and to aman of your temperament. They are calculated to produce congestion—apoplexy !” Moser’s long, meager frame seemed to give the direct lie to this assumption, but Dr. Brunnow did not stick at such trifles. He went on calmly: “Let me add that, to one of your peculiar consti- tution, it would be an incalculable benefit to have a doctor for a son-in-law, one who would watch over his father-in-law’s health with the utmost care. As I said before, you must not excite yourself.” “It is you who excite me!” cried the councilor, stung to distraction by this repeated mention of the objectionable relationship. “It is you who will bring on me an apoplectic attack with your detest- able suggestions. I feel quite iil now; the blood is all mounting to my head. I want air.” So saying, he sank back in his arm-chair, and clutched at his cravat again. Max kindly came to his assistance, and loosened the knot. ) “We will take off this white monstrosity.” said he, “you’ll feel easier then. I have an infallible remedy against congestions, and I will prescribe it for youat once. These seizures are serious; we must be careful.” Moser gave a melancholy glance at his beloved white cravat, now in the sacrilegious hands of the — GComicbooks (E()