SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INCONVENIENCES OF HAVING A DIGESTIVE APPARATUS.
But ennui was not the worst of the evils that clouded my happy lot. Some touches of that diabolical disorder, the curse of the rich man, which, as my sister so often gave me to know, had threatened the peace of Mr. Arthur Megrim several times before, now began to assail my own serenity, and threw gall and ratsbane over my dinners. I had slighted her warnings, and despised her advice, and now I was to pay the price of indiscretion. In a word, that very digestive apparatus, on which she read me a lecture at least thrice a day, began to grumble, refuse to do duty, and strike; though, unlike the industrious artisans, who were in all quarters setting it the example, it struck, not for high wages, of which it had had a surfeit, but for low ones, in which, however, its master was scarce able to oblige it, having an uncommonly good appetite most of the time; and even when he had not, not well knowing how to dispose of his time unless at the table.
My faithful sister, who had been so constant to predict, was the first to detect the coming evil, and, step by step, she pointed it out to my unwilling observation.
"Arthur," said she, one morning as we sat at breakfast, "your eyelid is winking."
"Augh—" said I, "yes; it is winking."
"It is a sign," said she, "your digestive apparatus is getting out of order!"
"Augh!" said I, "hang the digestive apparatus!" for I was tired of hearing it mentioned.
"Arthur," said she, the next day, "you are beginning to look yellow and bilious!"
"Yes," said I; on which she declared that "the alkalis of my biliary fluids"—she had studied the whole theory and nomenclature of dyspepsy out of a book the doctor lent her—"were beginning to fail to coalesce, in the natural chymical way, with the acids of the chymous mass; and that no better argument could be desired to prove that my digestive apparatus was getting out of order." And she concluded by recommending me to regulate my diet, and fall back upon bran bread and hickory ashes.