"You may go to the devil."
"Yes, sah."
With that I turned over for another nap, which I should undoubtedly have taken, had I not been interrupted, just as I was falling asleep, by the entrance of a lady of a somewhat starched and venerable appearance, though not more than six or seven years older than myself, I being perhaps twenty-five or six.
"A'n't you ashamed of yourself, Arthur!" said she. "Do tell me—do you intend to lie a-bed for ever?"
"Augh—pshaw!" said I. "Pray, madam, be so good as to inform me who you are, and—augh—what you want in my chamber?"
"Come," said the lady, "don't be ridiculous, and fall into any of your hyppoes again. Don't pretend you don't know your own sister, Ann Megrim."
"I won't," said I; "but—augh—sister, if you have no objection, I should like—augh—to sleep till dinner is ready."
"Dinner!" screamed my sister, Ann Megrim; "don't suppose you will ever be able to eat a dinner again. You know the doctor says it is your hard eating and your laziness together that have destroyed your digestive apparatus; and that, if you don't adhere to the bran bread and hickory ashes tea, you'll never be cured in the world."
"What!" said I, "am I sick?"
"Undoubtedly," said my sister Ann; "your digestive apparatus is all destroyed, and your nerves too. Did not you faint last night when they were galvanizing the bodies? Have you not lost all muscular power, so that you do nothing but lie on a bed or sofa all day long? Oh, really, brother Arthur Megrim, I am ashamed of you. A man like you—a young man and a rich man, a man of family and genius, a gentleman and a scholar, a man who might make himself governor of the state, or president of the nation, or any thing—yet to be nothing at all except the laziest man in Virginia, a man with no digestive apparatus, a poor nervous hyppo—oh, it is too bad! Do get up and stir yourself. Mount your horse, or go out in the carriage. Exercise, you know, is the only thing to restore strength to the digestive apparatus."