It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive
organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so.
It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon, it
says, "Work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!" After a cup
of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand more than
three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now, rise, and show your strength.
Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and
into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-
like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes
of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!"
After hot muffins, it says, "Be dull and soulless, like a beast of the
field - a brainless animal, with listless eye, unlit by any ray of fancy,
or of hope, or fear, or love, or life." And after brandy, taken in
sufficient quantity, it says, "Now, come, fool, grin and tumble, that
your fellow-men may laugh - drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless
sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are
drowned, like kittens, side by side, in half an inch of alcohol."
We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after
morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach,
and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will
come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and
you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father - a
noble, pious man.
Before our supper, Harris and George and I were quarrelsome and snappy
and ill-tempered; after our supper, we sat and beamed on one another, and
we beamed upon the dog, too. We loved each other, we loved everybody.
Harris, in moving about, trod on George's corn. Had this happened before
supper, George would have expressed wishes and desires concerning
Harris's fate in this world and the next that would have made a
thoughtful man shudder.
As it was, he said: "Steady, old man; `ware wheat."
And Harris, instead of merely observing, in his most unpleasant tones,
that a fellow could hardly help treading on some bit of George's foot, if
he had to move about at all within ten yards of where George was sitting,
suggesting that George never ought to come into an ordinary sized boat
with feet that length, and advising him to hang them over the side, as he
would have done before supper, now said: "Oh, I'm so sorry, old chap; I
hope I haven't hurt you."
And George said: "Not at all;" that it was his fault; and Harris said no,
it was his.
It was quite pretty to hear them.
We lit our pipes, and sat, looking out on the quiet night, and talked.
George said why could not we be always like this - away from the world,
with its sin and temptation, leading sober, peaceful lives, and doing
good. I said it was the sort of thing I had often longed for myself; and
we discussed the possibility of our going away, we four, to some handy,
well-fitted desert island, and living there in the woods.
Harris said that the danger about desert islands, as far as he had heard,
was that they were so damp: but George said no, not if properly drained.
And then we got on to drains, and that put George in mind of a very funny
thing that happened to his father once. He said his father was
travelling with another fellow through Wales, and, one night, they
stopped at a little inn, where there were some other fellows, and they
joined the other fellows, and spent the evening with them.
They had a very jolly evening, and sat up late, and, by the time they
came to go to bed, they (this was when George's father was a very young
man) were slightly jolly, too. They (George's father and George's
father's friend) were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds.
They took the candle, and went up. The candle lurched up against the
wall when they got into the room, and went out, and they had to undress
and grope into bed in the dark. This they did; but, instead of getting
into separate beds, as they thought they were doing, they both climbed
into the same one without knowing it - one getting in with his head at
the top, and the other crawling in from the opposite side of the compass,
and lying with his feet on the pillow.
There was silence for a moment, and then George's father said:
"Joe!"
"What's the matter, Tom?" replied Joe's voice from the other end of the
bed.
"Why, there's a man in my bed," said George's father; "here's his feet on
my pillow."
"Well, it's an extraordinary thing, Tom," answered the other; "but I'm
blest if there isn't a man in my bed, too!"
"What are you going to do?" asked George's father.
"Well, I'm going to chuck him out," replied Joe.
"So am I," said George's father, valiantly.
There was a brief struggle, followed by two heavy bumps on the floor, and
then a rather doleful voice said:
"I say, Tom!"
"Yes!"
"How have you got on?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, my man's chucked me out."
"So's mine! I say, I don't think much of this inn, do you?"
"What was the name of that inn?" said Harris.
"The Pig and Whistle," said George. "Why?"
"Ah, no, then it isn't the same," replied Harris.
