It is enough to say that I "exhibited" mustard by the pound and brandy by the quart, that I roasted him first on one side and then on the other, that his true skin was rubbed off, that I chlorodyned him until he slept for nearly a week, and that when he finally recovered he declared he felt "as if he'd been dead:" "And no wonder," as Pepper always remarked.

The only clue I could get to the cause of his illness was a shy confession, about a week afterwards, that he had eaten a few mushrooms.

Fenwick's idea of a few of anything was generally a liberal notion.

I questioned him narrowly as to what he had had for supper the night he was taken ill, and this was his bill of fare:-- "Well, you see, mum, I wasn't rightly hungry: it must have been them gripses coming on.

So I only had a shoulder (of mutton, _bien entendu_; when Fenwick had really a good appetite he regarded anything less than a whole leg of a sheep as an insult) that night, half-a-dozen slap jacks, and a trifle of mushrooms." "How big were the mushrooms ?" I asked.