THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE.
CHAPTER IX.
SHOWS THAT DOCTORS DIFFER.
Having christened his child, Agamemnon felt it to be his bounden duty to have him vaccinated; but his wife’s mother, with a perversity strongly characteristic of the genus, strenuously opposed Dr. Jenner’s plan of repealing the small pox11. Baylis., and insisted upon having him inoculated. Poor Mrs. Applebite was sorely perplexed between her habitual reverence for the opinions of her mama and the dread which she naturally felt of converting the face of the infant heir into a plum-pudding. Agamemnon had evidently determined to be positive upon this point, and all that could be extracted from him was the one word—vaccination!
To which Mrs. Waddledot replied,
“Vaccination, indeed!—as though the child were a calf! I’m sure and certain that the extreme dulness of young people of the present day is entirely owing to vaccination—it imbues them with a very stupid portion of the animal economy.”
As Agamemnon could not understand her, he again ejaculated—“Vaccination!”
“But, my dear,” rejoined Mrs. Applebite, “Mama has had so much experience that her opinion is worth listening to; I know that you give the preference to—”
“Vaccination!” interrupted Collumpsion.
“And so do I; but we have heard of grown-up people—who had always considered themselves secure—taking the small pox, dear.”
“To be sure we have,” chimed in Mrs. Waddledot; “and it’s a very dreadful thing, after indulgent and tender parents have been at the expense of nursing, clothing, physicking, teaching music, dancing, Italian, French, geography, drawing, and the use of the globes, to a child, to have it carried off because a misguided fondness has insisted upon—”
“Vaccination!” shouted pater Collumpsion.
“Exactly!” continued the “wife’s mother.” “Now inoculate at once, say I, before the child’s short-coated.”
Agamemnon rose from his seat, and advancing deliberately and solemnly to the table at which his wife and his wife’s mother were seated, he slowly raised his dexter arm above his head, and then, having converted his hand into a fist, he dashed his contracted digitals upon the rosewood as though he dared not trust himself with more than one word, and that one was—“Vaccination!”
Mrs. Waddledot’s first impulse was to jump out of her turban, in which she would have succeeded had not the mystic rolls of gauze which constituted that elaborate head-dress been securely attached to the chestnut “front” with which she had sought for some years to cheat the world into a forgetfulness of her nativity.
“I was warned of this! I was warned of this!” exclaimed the disarranged woman, as soon as she obtained breath enough for utterance. “But I wouldn’t believe it. I was told that the member for Puddingbury had driven one wife to her grave and the other to drinking.—I was told that it would run in the family, and that Mr. A.C. Applebite would be no better than Mr. I. Applebite!”
“Oh! Mama—you really wrong Aggy,” exclaimed Theresa.
“It’s lucky for you that you think so, my dear. If ever there was an ill-used woman, you are that unhappy individual. Oh, that ever—I—should live—to see a child of mine—have a child of hers vaccinated against her wish!” and here Mrs. Waddledot (as it is emphatically styled) burst into tears; not that we mean to imply that she was converted into an explosive jet d’eau, but we mean that she—she—what shall we say?—she blubbered.
It is really surprising how very sympathetic women are on all occasions of weeping, scolding, and scandalising; and accordingly Mrs. Applebite “opened the fountains of her eyes,” and roared in concert with her mama.
Agamemnon felt that he was an injured man—injured in the tenderest point—his character for connubial kindness; and he secretly did what many husbands have done openly—he consigned Mrs. Waddledot to the gentleman who is always represented as very black, because where he resides there is no water to wash with.
At this agonising moment Uncle Peter made his appearance; and as actors always play best to a good audience, the weeping ladies continued their lachrymose performance with renewed vigour. Uncle Peter was a plain man—plain in every meaning of the word; that is to say, he was very ugly and very simple; and when we tell you that his face resembled nothing but a half-toasted muffin, you can picture to yourself what it must have looked like under the influence of surprise; but nevertheless, both Agamemnon and the ladies simultaneously determined to make him the arbitrator in this very important matter.
“Uncle Peter,” said Agamemnon.
“Brother Peter,” sobbed Mrs. Waddledot.
“Which are you an advocate for?” hystericised Mrs. Applebite.
“Vaccination or inoculation?” exclaimed everybody ensemble.
Now whether Uncle John did clearly understand the drift of the question put to him, or whether he conceived that he was solicited to be the subject of some benevolent experiments for the advantage of future generations, it is certain that no man ever looked more positively
ON THE HORN OF A DILEMMA
than Uncle Peter. At length the true state of the case was made apparent to him; and the conclusion that he arrived at reflects the greatest possible credit upon his judgment. He decided, that as the child was a divided property, for the sake of peace and quietness, the heir of Applebite should be vaccinated in one arm and inoculated in the other.
FALSE ALARM.
We were paralysed the other day at seeing a paragraph headed “Sibthorpe’s conversion.” Our nose grew pale with terror; our hump heaved with agitation. We thought there existed a greater genius than ourselves and that some one had discovered that Sibthorp could be converted into anything but a Member for Lincoln, and buffoon-in-waiting to the House of Commons. We found, however, that it alluded to a Reverend, and not to OUR Colonel. Really the newspaper people should be more careful. Such startling announcements are little better than
SHEE(A)R CRUELTY.
DOING THE STATE SOME SERVICE.
During the conflagration of the Tower, it was apprehended at one time that the portion of it called the White Tower would have shared the fate of the grand store-house,—this was however prevented by hanging wet blankets around it, in which capacity Peter Borthwick, Mr. Plumtre, Col. Percival, and Lord Castlereagh, kindly offered their personal services and were found admirably adapted for the purpose.