in answeringanswermama awhile since , " saidsayhe , " and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains , and for the looklookyou had in your eyes two minutes since , you rat ! "
Nothing told me then that she , a few years hence , would be the wife of one entirely unknown to me as yet , but destined hereafter to become a closer friend than even herself , more intimate than that unmannerly lad of seventeen , by whom I was collaredcollarin the passage , on comingcomedown , and well-nigh jerkedjerkoff my equilibrium , and who , in correction for his impudenceimpudence, received a resounding whackwhackover the sconce , which , however , sustained no serious injury from the infliction ; as , besides being more than commonly thick , it was protected by a redundant shock of short , reddish curls , that my mother called auburn .