"Shelled!!"
"I mean taken out of the carcass."
"What do you think of a—hiccup!—physician?"
"Don't mention them!—ugh! ugh!" (Here his majesty retched violently.) "I never tasted but one—that rascal Hippocrates!—smelt of asafoetida—ugh! ugh! ugh!—caught a wretched cold washing him in the Styx—and after all he gave me the cholera morbus."
"The—hiccup!—wretch!"—ejaculated Bon-Bon—"the—hic-cup!—abortion of a pill-box!"—and the philosopher dropped a tear.
"After all"—continued the visiter—"after all, if a dev— if a gentleman wishes to live he must have more talents than one or two, and with us a fat face is an evidence of diplomacy."
"How so?"
"Why we are sometimes exceedingly pushed for provisions. You must know that in a climate so sultry as mine, it is frequently impossible to keep a spirit alive for more than two or three hours; and after death, unless pickled immediately, (and a pickled spirit is not good,) they will—smell—you understand, eh? Putrefaction is always to be apprehended when the spirits are consigned to us in the usual way."
"Hiccup!—hiccup!—good God! how do you manage?"
Here the iron lamp commenced swinging with redoubled violence, and the devil half started from his seat—however with a slight sigh he recovered his composure, merely saying to our hero in a low tone, "I tell you what, Pierre Bon-Bon, we must have no more swearing."