The Prime of Health

"Get back, you bastards! Take your pins and needles back home! You think I'm not used to having my blood drawn?"

"Joly," Bossuet remarked, out of breath as he cut down another assailant, "you have another wound on your arm."

"A pinprick!" Joly cried. "One barely feels such things when one is in the prime of health."

"Weren't you just telling me the other day that the balance of your humours was irreparably upset, and that you were sure to die within the week?"

"Nonsense! I only needed to get my blood moving, and I--"

A blast of the cannon drowned him out, and they both fell in the storm of grapeshot.

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