happy creature!” ejaculated the student, “torment of my life!”
At this moment Mr. Schnackenberger’s anxious ruminations were further enforced by the appearance of the town-crier under his window: inert as the town-council were in giving effect to their own resolutions, on this occasion it was clear that they viewed the matter as no joke; and were bent on rigorously following up their sentence. For the crier proclaimed the decree by beat of drum; explained the provisos of the twelve hours’ truce, and enjoined all good citizens, and worthy patriots, at the expiration of that period, to put the public enemy to the sword, where-ever she should be found, and even to rise en masse, if that should be necessary, for the extermination of the national robber—as they valued their own private welfare, or the honour and dignity of the state.
“English fiend!” said Mr. Schnackenberger, “will nothing reclaim thee? Now that I am rid of my German plague, must I be martyred by my English plague?” For be it mentioned that, on our hero’s return from the council, he had received some little comfort in his afflictions from hearing that Mrs. Sweetbread had, upon her return to B, testified her satisfaction with the zealous leader of the butchers’ boys, by forthwith bestowing upon him her widowed hand and heart, together with the Sow and its appurtenances. “English fiend!” resumed Mr. Schnackenberger, “most edacious and audacious of quadrupeds! can nothing be done for thee? Is it impossible to save thy life?” And again he stopped to ruminate. For her metaphysics it was hopeless to cure; but could nothing be done for her physics? At the university of X she had lived two years next door neighbour to the Professor of Moral Philosophy, and had besides attended many of his lectures without any sort of benefit to her morals, which still continued of the very worst description. “But could no course of medical treatment,” thought her master, “correct her inextinguishable voracity? Could not her pulse be lowered? Might not her appetite, or her courage, be tamed? Would a course of tonics be of service to her? Suppose I were to take her to England to try the effect of her native air; would any of the great English surgeons or physicians be able to prescribe for her effectually? Would opium cure her? Yet there was a case of bulimy at Thoulouse, where the French surgeons caught the patient and saturated him with opium; but it was of no use; for he ate[1] as many children after it as before. Would Mr. Abernethy, with his blue pill and his Rufus pill, be of any service to her? Or the acid bath—or the sulphate of zinc—or the white oxyd of bismuth?—or soda water? For, perhaps, her liver may be affected. But, lord! what talk I of her liver? Her liver’s as sound as mine. It’s her disposition that’s in fault; it’s her moral principles that are relaxed; and something must be done to brace them. Let me consider.”
At this moment a cry of “murder, murder!” drew the student’s eyes to the street below him; and there, to afflict his heart, stood his graceless Juno, having just upset the servant of a cook’s shop, in the very act of rifling her basket; the sound of the drum was yet ringing through the street; the crowd collected to hear it had not yet withdrawn from the spot; and in this way was Juno expressing her reverence for the proclamation of the town-council of B.
“Fiend of perdition!” said Mr. Schnackenberger, flinging his darling pipe at her head, in the anguish of his wrath, and hastening down to seize her. On arriving below, however, there lay his beautiful sea-foam pipe in fragments upon the stones; but Juno had vanished—to reappear no more in B.
- ↑ This man, whose case I have read in some French Medical Memoirs, was a desperate fellow: he cared no more for an ounce of opium, than for a stone of beef, or half a bushel of potatoes: all three would not have made him a breakfast. As to children, he denied in the most tranquil manner that he ate them. “’Pon my honour,” he sometimes said, “between ourselves, I never do eat children.” However, it was generally agreed, that he was pædophagous, or infantivorous. Some said that he first drowned them; whence I sometimes call him the pædobaptist. Certain it is, that wherever he appeared, a sudden scarcity of children prevailed.—Note of the Translator.
