I had managed, somehow or other, in the course of the night, to stump my toe, or wrench my foot; and, though the accident caused me but little inconvenience at the time, the member had begun gradually to feel uneasy; and now, as I sat at my table, it grew so painful that I was forced to draw off my boot. But this giving me little relief, and finding that my foot was swollen out of all shape and beauty, my brother Tim pronounced it a severe strain, and recommended that I should call in my family physician, Dr. Boneset, a very illustrious man, and fine fellow, who at that moment chanced to drive by in his coal-black gig, which looked, as physicians' gigs usually look, as if in mourning for a thousand departed patients. "What's the matter?" said the doctor. "Why, doctor," said I, "I have given my foot a confounded wrench; I scarce know how; but it is as big and as hot as a plum-pudding." "Hum, ay!--very unlucky," said the doctor: "off with your stocking, and let me look at your tongue. Pulse quite feverish. Fine port!" he said, drinking off a glass that Tim had poured him, and cocking his eye like one who means to be witty, "fine port, sir; but one can't float in it for ever without paying port-charges. A very gentlemanly disease, at all events. It lies between port and porter." "Port and porter! disease!" said I, slipping off my stocking as he directed, without well knowing what he meant. My foot was as red as a salamander, swelled beyond all expression, and, while I drew the stocking, it hurt me most horribly. "Zounds doctor!" said I, "can that be a wrench?" "No," said the doctor, "it's the wrencher--genuine _podagra_, 'pon honour." "Podagra!" said I; "Podagra!" said Tim; and "Podagra!" said the others. "What's that?" "Gout!" said the doctor. "Gout!" cried my friends; "Gout!!" roared my brother Tim; and "Gout!!!" yelled I, starting from the doctor as if from an imp of darkness who had just come to make claim to me. It was the unluckiest leap in the world; I kicked over a chair as I started, and the touch was as if I had clapped my foot into the jaws of a roaring lion. Crunch went every bone; crack went every sinew; and such a yell as I set up was never before heard in Chestnut-street. "You see, gentlemen--(I'll take another glass of that port, Mr. Doolittle)--you see what we must all come to! This is one of the small penalties one must pay for being a gentleman; when one dances, one must pay the piper. Now would my friend Higginson there give a whole year of his best brewing, that all the pale ale and purple port that have passed his lips had been nothing better than elder-wine and bonny-clabber. But never mind, my dear sir," said the son of Æsculapius, with a coolness that shocked me; "as long as it's only in your foot, it's a small matter." "A small matter!"--I grinned at him; but the unfeeling wretch only repeated his words--"A small matter!"