If I was surprised at the appearance of the imperial garment, much more was I astonished when, having slipped my arms into its sleeves, I found them,--that is, my arms,--suddenly pinioned, buried, sewed up, as it were, among the folds of the robe, so that, when it was tied behind me, as it immediately was, I was as well secured as when I was tied up for execution on a former occasion. Alas! the disappointment to my pride! I understood the whole matter in a moment: my imperial robe of state was nothing less nor more than a strait waistcoat, constructed upon the spur of the moment, but still on scientific principles. And now, being entirely at the mercy of the deceitful Tibbikens, I was seized upon with a strong hand, my head shaved and thrust into a sack of pounded ice, from which it was not taken until after a six days' congelation, and then only to be transferred to a nightcap of Spanish flies, exceedingly comfortable on the first application, but which, within a few hours, I had every reason to pronounce the most execrable covering in existence. And what made it still more intolerable, I never complained of it that Tibbikens did not assure me "it was the imperial coronet of France," and then exclaim, in the words of some old play, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." And then I was physicked and starved, phlebotomized, soused in cold water and scalded in hot, rubbed down with rough blanket cloths and hair-brushes as stiff as wool-cards, scorched with mustard plasters, bombarded by an electrical machine, and in general attacked by every weapon of art which the zeal of my tormentors could bring into play against me. In this way, if I was not cured of my disease, I was, at least, brought into subjection. I ceased complaining, which I did at first, and with becoming indignation, of the traitorous and sacrilegious violence done to my anointed body, for such I at first considered it. The arguments of my persecutors, however, to prove the contrary, were irresistible, being chiefly syllogisms, of which the major proposition was calomel and jalap, the minor mustard plasters and blisters, and the conclusion cold water, phlebotomy, and flax-seed tea. The same arguments, varied categorically according to circumstances, convinced me that if my imperial elevation, or the notion thereof, was not sheer insanity on my own part, my doctors thought so--which was the same thing in effect; and I therefore took good care, when bewailing my hard fate, not to charge it, as I at first did, to the democratic wrath and jealousy of my tormentors. 7. CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE IS CONVINCED THAT ALL IS NOT GOLD WHICH GLISTENS.