"'I don't like it,' I said," writes dear friend "Johnny," in his _Reminiscences_; "'I can't conceive where a poor, delicate little thing like that puts the food. Besides, although I like the children to enjoy a treat'--and how they kept on enjoying it for forty nights was a mystery, for I got into such a condition that if I dined at a friend's house, and goose was on the table, I regarded it as a personal affront--I said, referring to Tiny Tim, 'I don't like greediness; and it is additionally repulsive in a refined-looking, delicate little thing like this; besides, it destroys the sentiment of the situation--and when I, as Bob, ought to feel most pathetic, I am always wondering where the goose and the pudding are, or whether anything serious in the way of a fit will happen to Tiny Tim before the audience, in consequence of her unnatural gorging!' Mrs. Mellon laughed at me at first, but eventually we decided to watch Tiny Tim together. "We watched as well as we could, and the moment Tiny Tim was seated, and began to eat, we observed a curious shuffling movement at the stage-fireplace, and everything that I had given her, goose and potatoes, and apple-sauce disappeared behind the sham stove, the child pretending to eat as heartily as ever from the empty plate. When the performance was over, Mrs. Mellon and myself asked the little girl what became of the food she did not eat, and, after a little hesitation, she confessed that her little sister (I should mention that they were the children of one of the scene-shifters) waited on the other side of the fireplace for the supplies, and then the whole family enjoyed a hearty supper every night. "Dickens was very much interested in the incident. When I had finished, he smiled a little sadly, I thought, and then, shaking me by the hand, he said, 'Ah! you ought to have given her the whole goose.'" CHAPTER XXII RESTORATIVES "Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some antibilious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the soul." William of Normandy--A "head" wind at sea--Beware the druggist--Pick-me-ups of all sorts and conditions--Anchovy toast for the invalid--A small bottle--Straight talks to fanatics--Total abstinence as bad as the other thing--Moderation in all things--Wisely and slow--_Carpe diem_--But have a thought for the morrow. "I care not," observed William of Normandy to his quartermaster-general, on the morning after the revelry which followed the Battle of Hastings, "who makes these barbarians' wines; send me the man who can remove the beehive from my o'erwrought brain." This remark is not to be found in Macaulay's _History of England_; but learned authorities who have read the original MS. in Early Norman, make no doubt as to the correct translation.