5. 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.
