human
What's up?
gpt
I was only thinking that if Innocentina wants to convert Joseph from heresy she'd better not lecture him to-day about eternal fire. The idea is too inviting. I never envied anyone so much as my namesake, St. Laurence, on his gridiron. It would be a luxury to grill.
human
Perhaps the gridiron was to him what my dressing-gown is to you,
gpt
I'm getting resigned to it. That's the reason I'm talking to you. I hated you for five minutes; but--you never like people so much as when you've just finished hating them.
human
Which means that I'm forgiven?
gpt
That, and something more.
human
Good imp! The thermometer is rising. But I feel a beast to have got you into this scrape. If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have known that a mule-path existed on Mont Revard.
gpt
I'm not sorry we came. This will be something to remember always. It's a real adventure. Afterwards we shall get the point of view.
human
I wish we could get one now, said I.
gpt
But the prospect isn't cheerful. Molly Winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. She was certain that sooner or later I should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long to lose myself immediately. But, alas! a peasant child near Piedimulera is basking at this moment in my woolly sack, and battening on my Instantaneous Breakfasts.
human
Don't think of them, said the Boy.
gpt
That way madness lies. A chapter in my book shall be called, 'How to be Happy though Freezing.'
human
What would be your definition of the state, precisely?
gpt
Being with Somebody you--like.