You seem unwell, captain; but if you gave up spirituous liquors--such as wine and usquebaugh--you would find yourself the better for it." "What does all this mean ?" asked Manifold.

"At all events Doolittle's a rat.

A vegetable diet, a year of famine, toast, and water--O Lord!" Dinner, however, came, and the little waggish doctor could not, for the life of him, avoid his jokes.

Cooke's dish of vegetables was placed for him at a particular part of the table; but the doctor, taking Manifold by the hand, placed him in the philosopher's seat, whom he afterwards set before a magnificent sirloin of beef--for, truth to speak, the little man acted as a kind of master of the ceremonies to the company at Ballyspellan.
"What's this ?" exclaimed Manifold.

"Perdition! here is nothing but a dish of asparagus before me! What kind of treatment is this?
Were we not to have a great dinner, Topertoe?
Alexander the Great!" "And who placed me before a sirloin of beef ?" asked the philosopher; "I, who follow the principles of the Great Pythagorean.