"I am talking," said Dr. Boneset, "not of you, but of the disease; and what I meant to say was, that when it once finds itself at home, in a good wholesome corporation of a man, there you may expect to find it a tenant for life."
"For life!" said I. "I am the most wretched man in existence. Oh, Sheppard Lee! Sheppard Lee! what a fool were you to think yourself miserable!—Doctor, I shall go mad!"
"Not while you have the gout," said he; "'tis a sovereign protection against all that.—But let us look at your foot." And the awkward or malicious creature managed to drop a tortoise and gold snuff-box, of about a pound and a half weight, which he was always sporting, right upon the point of my great toe, while he was looking at it. Had it been a ton and a half instead of a pound and a half in weight, it could not have thrown me into greater torture; and the—the man!—he thought he had settled the matter by making me a handsome apology! He left me to endure my pangs, and to curse Squire Higginson's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and, in general, all his forefathers, who had entailed such susceptible great toes upon the family. In a word, I was in such a horrible quandary, that I wished the devil would fly off with my new body, as he had done before with the old.
[CHAPTER VI.]
SHEPPARD LEE'S INTRODUCTION TO HIS WIFE, AND HIS SUSPICION THAT ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLISTENS.
But there is, as philosophers say, an unguent for every wound, a solace for every care; and it was my fate to experience the consolation that one provides beforehand against the gout, as well as all other ills man may anticipate, in the person of a faithful spouse. On the fourth day of my malady, and just at a moment when I was fairly yelling with pain, a lady, neither young nor beautiful, but dressed like a princess, save that her shoes were down at heel, and her bonnet somewhat awry, stepped up to my bedside, seized me by the hand, and crying out, "Oh my poor dear husband!" burst into tears.
Her appearance acted like a charm; even my foot, that seemed to be roasting over one of Nott's patent anthracite blazers, grew cool and comfortable in the chill that was diffused over my whole body. Complaint was silent at the sight of her; pain vanished at her touch; I forgot that I had the gout, and remembered only that I had a wife.
I was struck dumb, and presume I should not have groaned again for twenty-four hours, had not my consort, in the exuberance of her affection and grief, thrown her arms around my neck, and thereby brought the whole weight of her body upon my foot, which, after having tried all parts of the bed, I had at last lodged upon the very extremity of the feathers; by which act of endearment my poor unfortunate limb was crushed against the horrible log of mahogany that made one side of the bed-stead, and ground to pieces. Had my wife been my wife twenty times over, I must have uttered just as loud a cry as I did, and repeated it just as often.