CHAPTER XLVI
Having taken possession of a room, called for French wine, and bespoke supper, the glass went about pretty freely, and the characters of my associates opened upon me more and more. It soon appeared that the doctor was entertained as butt for the painter and player to exercise their wit upon, for the diversion of the company. Mr. Ranter began the game by asking him what was good for a hoarseness, lowness of spirits, and in digestion, for he was troubled with all these complaints to a very great degree. Wagtail immediately undertook to explain the nature of his case, and in a very prolix manner harangued upon prognostics, diagnostics, symptomatics, therapeutics, inanition, and repletion; then calculated the force of the stomach and lungs in their respective operations; ascribed the player's malady to a disorder in these organs, proceeding from hard drinkings and vociferations, and prescribed a course of stomachics, with abstinence from venery, wine, loud speaking, laughing, singing, coughing, sneezing, or hallooing. "Pah, pah!" cried Ranter, interrupting him, "the remedy is worse than the disease--I wish I knew where to find some tinder water." "Tinder water!" said the doctor; "Upon my word, I don't apprehend you, Mr. Ranter." "Water extracted from tinder," replied the other, "a universal specific for all distempers incident to man. It was invented by a learned German monk, who, for a valuable consideration, imparted the secret to Paracelsus." "Pardon me," cried the painter, "it was first used by Solomon, as appears by a Greek manuscript in his civil handwriting, lately found at the foot of Mount Lebanon, by a peasant who was digging for potatoes--" "Well," said Wagtail, "in all my vast reading, I never met with such a preparation! neither did I know till this minute, that Solomon understood Greek, or that potatoes grew in Palestine."
Here Banter interposed, saying, he was surprised that Dr. Wagtail should make the least doubt of Solomon's understanding Greek, when he is represented to us as the wisest and best-educated prince in the world; and as for potatoes, they were transplanted thither from Ireland, in the time of the Crusade, by some knights of that country. "I profess," said the doctor, "there is nothing more likely. I would actually give a vast sum for a sight of that manuscript, which must be inestimable; and, if I understood the process, would set about it immediately." The player assured him the process was very simple--that he must cram a hundred-weight of dry tinder into a glass retort, and, distilling it by the force of animal heat, it would yield half a scruple of insipid water, one drop of which is a full dose. "Upon my integrity!" exclaimed the incredulous doctor, "this is very amazing and extraordinary! that a caput mortuum should yield any water at all. I must own I have always been an enemy to specifics which I thought inconsistent with the nature of the animal economy; but certainly the authority of Solomon is not to be questioned. I wonder where I shall find a glass retort large enough to contain such a vast quantity of tinder, the consumption of which must, undoubtedly, raise the price of paper, or where shall I find animal heat sufficient even to warm such a mass?" Slyboot informed him, that he might have a retort blown for him as big as a church: and, that the easiest method of raising the vapour by animal heat, would be to place it in the middle of an infirmary for feverish patients, who might he upon mattresses around and in contact with it. He had he sooner pronounced these words, than Wagtail exclaimed in a rapture, "An admirable expedient, as I hope to be saved! I will positively put it in practice."