“I assure you, sir,” said Doolittle, “that I am forcing Mr. Manifold here to avail himself of your system—a simple vegetable diet.”
“O Lord!” exclaimed Manifold, in a soliloquy—for he was perfectly unconscious of what was going on—“toast and water, toast and water! That and a season of famine—what a prospect is before me! Doolittle is a rat, and I will hire somebody to give him ratsbane. Nothing but a vegetable diet, and be hanged to him! What's ratsbane an ounce?”
“You hear, sir,” said Doolittle, addressing the Pythagorean; “you perceive that I am adopting your system?”
“Mr. Doolittle,” replied Cooke, “from this day forth you are my physician—I intrust you with the management of my rheumatism; but, in the meantime, I think the room is devilishly cold.”
Captain Culverin now entered, swathed up, and, as was evident, somewhat tipsy.
“Eh! confound me, philosopher, your hand,” he exclaimed, putting out his own to shake hands with him.
“I can't, sir,” replied Cooke; “I am afflicted with rheumatism. You seem unwell, captain; but if you gave up spirituous liquors—such as wine and usquebaugh—you would find yourself the better for it.”
“What does all this mean?” asked Manifold. “At all events Doolittle's a rat. A vegetable diet, a year of famine, toast, and water—O Lord!”
Dinner, however, came, and the little waggish doctor could not, for the life of him, avoid his jokes. Cooke's dish of vegetables was placed for him at a particular part of the table; but the doctor, taking Manifold by the hand, placed him in the philosopher's seat, whom he afterwards set before a magnificent sirloin of beef—for, truth to speak, the little man acted as a kind of master of the ceremonies to the company at Ballyspellan.
“What's this?” exclaimed Manifold. “Perdition! here is nothing but a dish of asparagus before me! What kind of treatment is this? Were we not to have a great dinner, Topertoe? Alexander the Great!”