The good doctor, who had suggested beefsteak and Marsala when I was incapable of taking anything at all, ruled me severely in the matter of diet now that I really began to feel hungry.

I hope I may never again be obliged to drink goat's milk; in these days it became so unutterably loathsome to me that I had, at length, to give it up altogether, and I cannot think of it now without a qualm.

The broth offered me was infamous, mere coloured water beneath half an inch of floating grease.

Once there was a promise of a fowl, and I looked forward to it eagerly; but, alas! this miserable bird had undergone a process of seething for the extraction of soup.

I would have defied anyone to distinguish between the substance remaining and two or three old kid gloves boiled into a lump.