"So, you see, after I heard of this change I was in such a taking, that, to drown my disappointment, I had a wet week with Sir Oliver and some Kingston friends; for it was the rainy season, you must know, and devils are those same Kingstonians, in the way of gentleman-like libations of tepid Madeira and cold claret, whereby I got another touch of my old remembrancer the gout, under which I am at this blessed moment suffering severely--I say, boy, bring me a rummer of Madeira sangaree, and a hot yam with the brown, crisp and well scraped, do you hear--well I declare the skin of it is as beautiful as a berry, and the mealy inside as fragrant as the dryest potato from Ballywindle in old Ireland--so here's the 'glorious and immortal memory,' and confound the Pope; but never mind, although, you may just confound the gout too, when you are at it.--But, as I was saying, I came home with the gout brewing all the way, and got so wet one day, that I dreaded lest, it should be driven into that fortress, or rather that citadel, the stomach--there's a poetical image for you--so I took a warming, that is, I made another comfortable week of it on my return home, just to keep up the circulation, and to drive the enemy--don't be surprised at the militariness of my lingo, for I am colonel of the regiment of foot militia here--another parenthesis, Timothy--from, the interior, and compel him to develope his strength in the outworks, or rather to retreat to them, which he, the gout, viz. has done with a vengeance, let me tell you; having clapperclawed what you would call my larboard peg, and my starboard fin, zig-zagging in his approaches, as regularly as Vauban or Cohorn--fair play, you know--a sound limb on each side, which is a mercy of its kind; so I hop from table to bed, and _vice versa_, and balance myself the whole way like a rope-dancer; for I hate a crutch--what are you stopping for, Timothy--oh, I see, to mend your pen--sangaree, Tim--bless me, how thirsty I am, to be sure!--I hate a crutch, and my servants, curiously enough, for we don't often agree, are unanimous with me in that same, as somehow I break one a-day, when I am driven to it, over their woolly skulls: and that costs money--if you could pick up a cheap lot of lancewood spars, now, in Havanna, that would stand a blow--you might fetch me a hundred or so--it is tough, and bends, and doesn't break like mahogany or cedar.