“Against drinking! do you think I’d perjure myself? No! But against pressing _him_ to it--I’ll take my oath I’ll never ask him to drink another glass more than he likes.” The oath was taken, and King Corny concluded the ceremony by observing that, after all, there was no character he despised more than that of a sot. But every gentleman knew that there was a wide and material difference betwixt a gentleman who was fond of his bottle, and that unfortunate being, an habitual drunkard. For his own part, it was his established rule never to go to bed without a proper quantity of liquor under his belt; but he defied the universe to say he was ever known to be drunk. At a court where such ingenious casuistry prevailed, it was happy for our hero that an unqualifying oath now protected his resolution. CHAPTER V. In the middle of the night our hero was wakened by a loud bellowing. It was only King Corny in a paroxysm of the gout. His majesty was naturally of a very impatient temper, and his maxims of philosophy encouraged him to the most unrestrained expression of his feelings--the maxims of his philosophy--for he had read, though in most desultory manner, and he had thought often deeply, and not seldom justly. The turns of his mind, and the questions he asked, were sometimes utterly unexpected. “Pray, now,” said he to Harry, who stood beside his bed, “now that I’ve a moment’s ease--did you ever hear of the Stoics that the bookmen talk of? and can you tell me what good any one of them ever got by making it a point to make no noise, when they’d be _punished_ and racked with pains of body or mind? Why, I will tell you all they got--all they got was no pity: who would give them pity that did not require it? I could bleed to death in a bath, as well as the best of them, if I chose it; or chew a bullet if I set my teeth to it, with any man in a regiment--but where’s the use? nature knows best, and she says _roar_!” And he roared--for another twinge seized him. Nature said _sleep_! several times this night to Harry, and to every body in the palace; but they did not sleep, they could not, while the roaring continued: so all had reason to rejoice, and Moriarty in particular, when his majesty’s paroxysm was past. Harry was in a sound sleep at twelve o’clock the next day, when he was summoned into the royal presence. He found King Corny sitting at ease in his bed, and that bed strewed over with a variety of roots and leaves, weeds and plants. An old woman was hovering over the fire, stirring something in a black kettle. “Simples these--of wonderful unknown power,” said King Corny to Harry, as he approached the bed; “and I’ll engage you don’t know the name even of the half of them.” Harry confessed his ignorance. “No shame for you--was you as wise as King Solomon himself, you might not know them, for he did not, nor couldn’t, he that had never set his foot a grousing on an Irish bog. Sheelah, come you over, and say what’s this?”