"Give me a glass of cold water, ma'am," said the subject of her solicitude. "Thank you--that's the best drink--_slop_, I think you call it--a sick man can swallow." Sally Rumble coughed a little, and fidgeted, and at last she said: "Please, sir, would you wish I should fetch any other sort of a minister?" "Don't plague me, pray; I believe in the prophet Rabelais and _je m'en vais chercher un grand peutêtre_--the two great chemists, Death, who is going to analyse, and Life, to re-combine me. I tell you, ma'am, my head is bursting; I'm very ill; I'll talk no more." She hesitated. She lingered in the room, in her great perplexity; and Mr. Dingwell lay back, with a groan. "I'll tell you what you may do: go down to your landlord's office, and be so good as to say to either of those d----d Jew fellows--I don't care which--that I am as you see me; it mayn't signify, it may blow over; but I've an idea it is serious; and tell them I said they had better know that I am _very ill_, and that I've taken no step about it." With another weary groan Mr. Dingwell let himself down on his pillow, and felt worse for his exertion, and very tired and stupid, and odd about the head, and would have been very glad to fall asleep; and with one odd pang of fear, sudden and cold, at his heart, he thought, "I'm going to die--I'm going to die--at last--I'm going to die." The physical nature in sickness acquiesces in death; it is the instructed mind that recoils; and the more versed about the unseen things of futurity, unless when God, as it were, prematurely glorifies it, the more awfully it recoils. Mr. Dingwell was not more afraid than other sinners who have lived for the earthy part of their nature, and have taken futurity pretty much for granted, and are now going to test by the stake of _themselves_ the value of their loose guesses. No; he had chanced a great many things, and they had turned out for the most part better than he expected. Oh! no; the whole court, and the adjoining lanes, and, in short, the whole city of London, must go as he would--lots of company, it was not to be supposed it was anything very bad--and he was so devilish tired, _over_-fatigued-- queer--worse than sea-sickness--that headache--fate--the change--an end--what was it? At all events, a rest, a sleep--sleep--could not be very bad; lots of sleep, sir, and the chance--the chance--oh, yes, things go pretty well, and I have not had my good luck yet. I wish I could sleep a bit--yes, let kingdom-come be all sleep--and so a groan, and the brain duller, and more pain, and the immense fatigue that demands the enormous sleep.