"I am surprised to hear you talk of being hungry, father," said Abelard; "you are surely too fat to feel any craving for food. Fat, you know, is a kind of intermedium through which the nutritive matter extracted from the food, must pass before it is assimilated to repair the loss of the individual. It thus forms a kind of magazine to supply his wants; and a fat man may abstain from food much longer than another, because, during this abstinence, the collected fat is rapidly re-absorbed."
Father Murphy did not speak, but his look was sufficient, and his teeth clattering in his head afforded an ample commentary upon the text.
"You seem cold also," said the pedantic butler; "but that must be a mistake, for animal oil is universally allowed to be a bad conductor of caloric."
"The devil take your caloric," cried Father Murphy, again forgetting his holy office in his anger; "I suppose you'll want to persuade me that I have no feeling next."
"That is far from impossible," replied Abelard, with the most provoking gravity; "for fat, by surrounding the extremities of the nerves, always obviates inordinate sensibility. At the same time, pray do not let me be misunderstood:—I do not say that fat people can do entirely without eating, for the indivisibility and individuality of the living body can only be maintained by an incessant change of the particles which enter into its composition; though merely part—"
"Hold, hold, for Heaven's sake!" groaned Father Murphy.
"—Part of the animal food is reduced into chyle," resumed Abelard; "and, as you doubtless know, another part becomes bones; in fact, the bones are merely secretory organs encrusted with phosphate of lime. The lymphatic vessels remove this salt—"
"Oh!" groaned Father Murphy, "all this is very fine, but it does not make me one whit less hungry. O that I had a broiled rump-steak at this moment, smoking hot and swimming in gravy, with a lump of fresh butter!"
"Hark!" cried Abelard, "the vibration of the air that strikes upon the tympanum of my ears, gives intimation of the approach of some tangible object."
"Alas! alas!" cried the priest, "it is certainly the spirits returned, that carried away poor Clara. Poor dear girl! that was certainly her pocket-handkerchief."