But ennui was not the worst of the evils that clouded my happy lot. Some touches of that diabolical disorder, the curse of the rich man, which, as my sister so often gave me to know, had threatened the peace of Mr. Arthur Megrim several times before, now began to assail my own serenity, and threw gall and ratsbane over my dinners. I had slighted her warnings, and despised her advice, and now I was to pay the price of indiscretion. In a word, that very digestive apparatus, on which she read me a lecture at least thrice a day, began to grumble, refuse to do duty, and _strike_; though, unlike the industrious artisans, who were in all quarters setting it the example, it struck, not for high wages, of which it had had a surfeit, but for low ones, in which, however, its master was scarce able to oblige it, having an uncommonly good appetite most of the time; and even when he had not, not well knowing how to dispose of his time unless at the table. My faithful sister, who had been so constant to predict, was the first to detect the coming evil, and, step by step, she pointed it out to my unwilling observation. "Arthur," said she, one morning as we sat at breakfast, "your eyelid is winking." "Augh--" said I, "yes; it is winking." "It is a sign," said she, "your digestive apparatus is getting out of order!" "Augh!" said I, "hang the digestive apparatus!" for I was tired of hearing it mentioned. "Arthur," said she, the next day, "you are beginning to look yellow and bilious!" "Yes," said I; on which she declared that "the alkalis of my biliary fluids"--she had studied the whole theory and nomenclature of dyspepsy out of a book the doctor lent her--"were beginning to fail to coalesce, in the natural chymical way, with the acids of the chymous mass; and that no better argument could be desired to prove that my digestive apparatus was getting out of order." And she concluded by recommending me to regulate my diet, and fall back upon bran bread and hickory ashes. In short, my dear sister assailed me with a pertinacity equal to the disease itself, so that I came, in a short time, to consider her as one of its worst symptoms. To add to my woes, Dr. Tibbikens began to go over to her opinion, to talk of my digestive apparatus, and to drop hints in relation to bran bread and hickory ashes, which would decidedly have robbed him of my friendship, had I not at last found myself unable to do without him. To make a long story short, I will omit a detailed history of my tribulations during the winter, and skip at once to the following spring; at the opening of which I found myself, young, rich, and independent as I was, the bond-slave and victim of a malady to which the woes of age and penury are as the sting of moschetoes to the teeth of raging tigers.