50 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



when the doctor's gig drove up the avenue ; for the 

 remark he made, on the occasion of my reappearance 

 after a somewhat serious surfeit, that "he was afraid 

 the pretty bird who ate his Morello cherries, had hurt 

 his little beak against the stones ; " I could forgive 

 him so far, and I could forgive Nurse for putting me 

 to bed ; but to make me swallow that vile nauseous 

 mess, as an antidote to a perfectly impossible stomach- 

 ache, to treat me as one surcharged and plethoric, 

 when I was as hollow, sir, as my own drum ; you 

 must agree with me although the mixture did not 

 that no insult could have been offered to me with a 

 worse taste, and you will be glad to be told hereafter 

 that I had my revenge. And here, as the champion 

 of injured innocence, I protest solemnly against that 

 flaunting display of the Family Medicine Chest, which 

 I have noticed in some nurseries. The position of 

 our own was fulsome. Each morning it met my 

 awaking sight, with its hard; cold stare of brassy 

 insolence ; and it shone in the firelight, when I lay 

 abed at eve, as though polished with the Oil of Castor. 

 The expression of countenance with which the nurses 

 pointed to that box was fiendish ; and the way in 

 which they unlocked it, and loitered over the prepara- 

 tion of its doses, was worthy of the Inquisition in its 

 best and happiest days. Somebody filled the keyhole, 

 on one occasion, with an unusual but ingenious com- 

 bination of coal-dust and batter-pudding ; and some- 

 body chuckled in his crib, you may be sure, when 

 Nurse broke both lock and key. 



Now let me propose briefly to my brother Spades 

 and others a thought or two concerning the treatment 

 of little children in gardens. 



