"My meaning was now understood. An end of the box was pried off, and full a bushel of dried beans and peas were poured out, to the delight of all. Some were stewed immediately, and although rather hard, I never relished any thing more. But while the operation of cooking was going on below, we amused ourselves with parching some beans upon the sheet-iron—the 'thunder' of the theatre—set over an old furnace, and heated by rosin from the lightning-bellows.
"So we fed upon rain, cooked by thunder-and-lightning!"
There is nothing in the history of Irving's "Strolling Player" more characteristic of his class than the foregoing; and there is a verisimilitude about the story which does not permit us to doubt its authenticity. It is too natural not to be true.
Think of a patent-medicine vender rising at the head of his table, where were assembled some score or two of his customers, and proposing such a toast as the following:
"Gentlemen: allow me to propose you a sentiment. When I mention Health, you will all admit that I allude to the greatest of sublunary blessings. I am sure then that you will agree with me that we are all more or less interested in the toast that I am about to prescribe. I give you, gentlemen,
"Physic, and much good may it do us!"
This sentiment is "drunk with all the honors," when a professional Gallenic vocalist favors the company with the annexed song:
"A bumper of Febrifuge fill, fill for me,
Give those who prefer it, Black Draught;
But whatever the dose a strong one it must be,
Though our last dose to-night shall be quaffed.
And while influenza attacks high and low,
And man's queerest feelings oppress him,
Mouth-making, nose-holding, round, round let I go,
Drink our Physic and Founder—ugh, bless him."