No More Learning

ugh! ugh! " (Here his Majesty retched
violently. ) "I never tasted but one--that rascal Hippocrates! --smelt of
asafoetida--ugh! ugh! ugh! --caught a wretched cold washing him in the
Styx--and after all he gave me the cholera morbus. "

"The--hiccup--wretch! " ejaculated Bon-Bon, "the--hic-cup! --absorption of
a pill-box! "--and the philosopher dropped a tear.

"After all," continued the visiter, "after all, if a dev--if a gentleman
wishes to live, he must have more talents than one or two; and with us a
fat face is an evidence of diplomacy. "

"How so? "

"Why, we are sometimes exceedingly pushed for provisions.
You must know
that, in a climate so sultry as mine, it is frequently impossible to
keep a spirit alive for more than two or three hours; and after death,
unless pickled immediately (and a pickled spirit is not good),
they will--smell--you understand, eh? Putrefaction is always to be
apprehended when the souls are consigned to us in the usual way. "

"Hiccup! --hiccup! --good God! how do you manage? "

Here the iron lamp commenced swinging with redoubled violence, and
the devil half started from his seat;--however, with a slight sigh, he
recovered his composure, merely saying to our hero in a low tone: "I
tell you what, Pierre Bon-Bon, we must have no more swearing. "

The host swallowed another bumper, by way of denoting thorough
comprehension and acquiescence, and the visiter continued.

"Why, there are several ways of managing. The most of us starve: some
put up with the pickle: for my part I purchase my spirits vivente
corpore, in which case I find they keep very well. "

"But the body! --hiccup! --the body! "

"The body, the body--well, what of the body? --oh! ah!