At midnight Angelo was sleeping peacefully.  His immersion had not harmed him, it had merely made him wholesomely drowsy, and he had been dead asleep many hours now.  It had made Luigi drowsy, too, but he had got only brief naps, on account of his having to take the medicine every three-quarters of an hour-and Aunt Betsy Hale was there to see that he did it.  When he complained and resisted, she was quietly firm with him, and said in a low voice: 

“No-no, that won’t do; you mustn’t talk, and you mustn’t retch and gag that way, either—­you’ll wake up your poor brother.”

“Well, what of it, Aunt Betsy, he—­”

“’Sh-h!  Don’t make a noise, dear.  You mustn’t:  forget that your poor brother is sick and—­”

“Sick, is he?  Well, I wish I—­”

“’Sh-h-h!  Will you be quiet, Luigi!  Here, now, take the rest of it —­don’t keep me holding the dipper all night.  I declare if you haven’t left a good fourth of it in the bottom!  Come-that’s a good—­

“Aunt Betsy, don’t make me!  I feel like I’ve swallowed a cemetery; I do, indeed.  Do let me rest a little—­just a little; I can’t take any more of the devilish stuff now.”

“Luigi!  Using such language here, and him just baptized!  Do you want the roof to fall on you?”

“I wish to goodness it would!”

“Why, you dreadful thing!  I’ve a good notion to—­let that blanket alone; do you want your, brother to catch his death?”

“Aunt Betsy, I’ve got to have it off, I’m being roasted alive; nobody could stand it—­you couldn’t yourself.”

“Now, then, you’re sneezing again—­I just expected it.”

“Because I’ve caught a cold in my head.  I always do, when I go in the water with my clothes on.  And it takes me weeks to get over it, too.  I think it was a shame to serve me so.”

“Luigi, you are unreasonable; you know very well they couldn’t baptize him dry.  I should think you would be willing to undergo a little inconvenience for your brother’s sake.”

“Inconvenience!  Now how you talk, Aunt Betsy.  I came as near as anything to getting drowned you saw that yourself; and do you call this inconvenience?—­the room shut up as tight as a drum, and so hot the mosquitoes are trying to get out; and a cold in the head, and dying for sleep and no chance to get any—­on account of this infamous medicine that that assassin prescri—­”

“There, you’re sneezing again.  I’m going down and mix some more of this truck for you, dear.”

CHAPTER IX

THE DRINKLESS DRUNK