"What is the matter with you?" asked the apothecary.
"I have got the—the toothache," said Perch.
"Humph!" said the apothecary. And he went into a back room to get a bottle.
"Father," said a blue-eyed young lady in the back room, "do not give that young man any laudanum."
"Why not?"
"Because I have been watching him through the door, and I am certain he is crossed in love. He will kill himself."
"Pooh! pooh! the young man has got the toothache. That's worse than being crossed in love a hundred times."
"Oh, father!" said the young lady, and she resumed her reading of "The Sorrows of Werther."
The apothecary filled the bottle and handed it to his customer. Perch returned to his room and proceeded to make preparations for his departure from earth. He sat down and wrote a letter to the cruel Imogen, in which he accused her of being the sole cause of his untimely end. He directed another letter to his distinguished friend, M. T. Pate, telling him that his sufferings were unendurable, and that he had been driven by despair to the commission of the deed.
With a trembling hand the Long Green Boy then poured about half the contents of the bottle into a goblet and hastily drank it off. He then laid himself down on the bed, crossed his legs and folded his arms, and prepared to die with decency. Instead of the lethal effects of the laudanum which he had expected, he soon experienced a wonderful exhilaration. The washstand in the corner of the room seemed to be dancing a jig; there were now two lamps on the table instead of one; and at last the room itself was in motion, and the Long Green Boy supposed that the house was being moved about by an earthquake. In great excitement he arose from the bed, and with the floor rocking and rolling so that he could hardly stand on his feet, he staggered to the table, and, seizing the bottle, swallowed its contents. With a revolving motion he then reached the bed, sank down, and was soon in a state of profound insensibility.