Book 1 — CHAPTER V.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL SURPRISING TRANSFORMATIONS.

Whether Dr. Tibbikens treated me secundum artem or not, I cannot say; but true it is, that instead of getting better, I grew gradually worse, until my melancholy became a confirmed hypochondriasis, and fancies gloomy and dire, wild and strange, seized upon my brain, and conjured up new afflictions.

Getting up early one morning, I found, to my horror, that I had been, in my sleep, converted into a coffee-pot; a transformation which I thought so much more extraordinary than any other I had ever undergone, that I sent for my sister Ann, and imparted to her the singular secret.

"Oh!" said she, bursting into tears, "it is all on account of your unfortunate digestive apparatus. But, oh! brother Arthur, don't let such notions get into your head. A coffee-pot, indeed! that's too ridiculous!"

I was quite incensed at her skepticism, but still more so at the conduct of Dr. Tibbikens, who, being sent for, hearing of my misfortune, and seeing me stand in the middle of the floor, with my left arm akimbo, like a crooked handle, and the right stretched out in the manner of a spout, seized me by the shoulders and marched me towards a great hickory fire that was blazing on the hearth.

"What do you mean, Tibbikens?" said I.

"To warm you," said he: "I like my coffee hot; and so I intend to boil you over again on that very fire!"

At these words I started, trembled, and awoke as from a dream, assuring him I had made a great mistake, and was no more of a coffee-pot than he was; an assurance that doubtless prevented my undergoing an ordeal which I was neither saint nor fire-king enough to endure with impunity. Indeed, I was quite ashamed of having permitted such a delusion to enter my brain.

The next day, however, a still more afflicting change came over me; for having tried to read a book, in which I was interrupted by a great dog barking in the street, I was seized with a rage of a most unaccountable nature, and falling on my hands and feet, I responded to the animal's cries, and barked in like manner, being quite certain that I was as much of a dog as he. Nay, my servant Epaminondas coming in, I seized him by the leg and would have worried him, had he not run roaring out of the chamber; and my sister Ann coming to the door, I flew at her with such ferocity that she was fain to escape down stairs. The doctor was again sent for, and popping suddenly into the chamber, he rushed upon me with a great horsewhip he had snatched up along the way, and fell to belabouring me without mercy, crying out all the while, "Get out, you rascal, get out!"

"Villain!" said I, jumping on my hind legs, and dancing about to avoid his lashes, "what do you mean?"

"To whip you down stairs, you cur!" said he, flourishing his weapon again.

On which I assured him as earnestly as I could that "I was no cur whatever;" and indeed I was quite cured of the fancy.

My next conceit was (the morning being cold, and my fire having gone out), that I was an icicle; which fancy was dispelled by the doctor saluting me with a bucket of water, on pretence of melting me; and I was doubtless melted all the sooner for being drenched in water exactly at the freezing-point.

After this I experienced divers other transformations, being now a chicken, now a loaded cannon, now a clock, now a hamper of crockery-ware, and a thousand things besides; all which conceits the doctor cured without much difficulty, and with as little consideration for the roughness of his remedies. Being a chicken, he attempted to wring my neck, calling me a dunghill rooster, fit only for the pot; he discharged the cannon from my fancies by clapping a red-hot poker to my nose; and the crate of crockery he broke to pieces by casting it on the floor, to the infinite injury of my bones. The clock at first gave him some trouble, until, pronouncing it to have a screw out of order, he seized upon one of my front teeth with a pair of pincers, and by a single wrench dissipated the delusion for ever.