“Never mind that—­an old acquaintance.  Hell and torments! what’s this?  O!”

“The weather’s pleasant, Topertoe.  I say, Topertoe, what’s this your name is?”

“O!  O!” exclaimed Topertoe, who felt one or two desperate twinges of his prevailing malady; “curse me, Manifold, but I think I would exchange with you; your complaint is an easy one compared to mine.  You are a mere block, and will pop off without pain, instead of being racked like a soul in perdition as I am.”

“Your soul in perdition—­well I suppose it will.  But don’t groan and scream so—­you I are not there yet; when you are you will have plenty of time to groan and scream.  As for myself, I will be likely to sleep it out there.  I think, by the way, I had the pleasure of knowing you before; your face is familiar to me.  What’s this you call the man that attends sick people?”

“A doctor.  O!  O!  Hell and torments! what is this?  Yes, a doctor.  O!  O!”

“Ay, a doctor.  Confound me, but I think my head’s going around like a top.  Yes, a—­a—­a—­a doctor.  Well, the doctor says that I and Parson Topertoe led a nice life of it—­one a glutton and the other a drunkard.  Do you know Topertoe?  Because if you don’t I do.  He is a damned scoundrel, and squeezed his tithes out of the people with pincers of blood.”

“Manifold, your gluttony has brought you to a fine pass.  Are you alive or not?”

“Eh?  Curse all dry toast and water!  But it’s all the consequence of this year of famine.  Pray, sir, what do you eat?”

“Beef, mutton, venison, fowl, ham, turbot, salmon, black sole, with all the proper and corresponding sauces and condiments.”

“O Lord! and no toast and water, beef tea, and oatmeal gruel?  Heavens! how I wish this year of famine was past.  It will be the death of me.  I say, what’s this your name is?  Your face is familiar to me somehow.  Could you aid me in poisoning the—­the—­what you call him—­ay, the doctor?”

“Nothing more easily done, my dear Manifold.  Contrive to let him take one of his own doses, and he’s done for.”

“Wouldn’t ratsbane do?  I often think he’s a rat.”

“In face and eyes he certainly looks very like one.”

“Are you aware, sir, that my wife’s a cripple?  She’s paralyzed in her lower limbs.”

“I am perfectly aware of that melancholy fact.”

“Are you aware that she’s jealous of me?”

“No, not that she’s jealous of you now; but perfectly aware that she had good cause to be so.”

“Ay, but the devil of it is that the paralysis you speak of never reached her tongue.”

“I speak of—­’twas yourself spoke of it.”

“She sent me here because it happens to be a year of famine—­what is commonly called a hard season—­and she stitched the little blasted doctor to me that I might die legitimately under medical advice.  Isn’t that very like murder—­isn’t it?”

“Ah, my dear friend, thank God that you are not a parson, having a handsome wife and a handsome curate, with the gout to support you and keep you comfortable.  You would then feel that there are other twinges worse than those of the gout.”