“Certainly,” said Edric, striving to suppress a yawn; “nothing can be more clear.”
“Nothing,” resumed the doctor. “I was sure you would admire the force of my reasoning; indeed, I see the excess of your admiration in the involuntary yawns in which you have been indulging. On some occasions, Edric, man shakes off the artificial restraints of society, and breaks forth into the full freedom of honest and unsophisticated nature:—thus it was with you, Edric. In ancient times, the extension of the jaws was held synonymous with the extension of the understanding, and the opening of the mouth and eyes was considered as the greatest possible sign of pleasure that could be given. In the works of an ancient author, whose poetry was doubtless once esteemed very fine, since it is now quite unintelligible, we find the following passage:—
‘And Hodge stood lost in wide-mouth’d speculation.’
Again,
‘His eyes and mouth the hero open’d wide.’
—And divers others, which—”
“We will leave till a more convenient opportunity, if you please,” said Edric, interrupting him. “At present, do favour me with your attention five minutes. We cannot take all these things.”
“Why not?” asked the doctor, gazing at his pupil with surprise; “for my part, I do not think we can dispense with a single article.”
“These cloaks,” said Edric, “and those hampers, for instance, cannot be of the slightest use.”
“I beg your pardon,” returned the doctor: “The cloaks are of asbestos, and will be necessary to protect us from ignition, if we should encounter any electric matter in the clouds; and the hampers are filled with elastic plugs for our ears and noses, and tubes and barrels of common air, for us to breathe when we get beyond the atmosphere of the earth.”
“But what occasion shall we have to go beyond it?”
“How can we do otherwise? Surely you don’t mean to travel the whole distance in the balloon? I thought, of course, you would adopt the present fashionable mode of travelling, and after mounting the seventeen miles or thereabouts, which is necessary to get clear of the mundane attraction, to wait there till the turning of the globe should bring Egypt directly under our feet.”
“But it is not in the same latitude.”
“True; I did not think of that! Well, then,” sighing deeply, “I suppose we must do without the hamper?”
“Certainly; and without those boxes and bottles too, I hope.”
“Oh no! we can’t do without those. Those bottles contain my magic elixir, that cures all diseases merely by the smell:—a new idea that. You know it has been long discovered, that the whole materia medica might be carried in a ring, and that all the instruments of surgery might be compressed into a walking-stick. But the idea of sniffing health in a pinch of snuff is, I flatter myself, exclusively my own.”
“Very likely; but we cannot be encumbered with your panacea in our aerial tour.”
“Then that box contains my portable galvanic battery; that, my apparatus for making and collecting the inflammable air; and that, my machine for producing and concentrating the quicksilver vapour, which is to serve as the propelling power to urge us onwards, in the place of steam; and these bladders are filled with laughing gas, for the sole purpose of keeping up our spirits.”
“The three first will be useful,” said Edric; “but I will positively have no more.”
“Adieu! adieu! then, my precious treasures!” exclaimed the doctor, looking sorrowfully around: “Dear offspring of my cares! children of my mind! and must I leave you to some rude hand, which, heedless of your inestimable worth, may scatter your beauties to the winds? Alas! alas!”
“Breakfast is ready, and my lord is waiting!” interrupted the shrill voice of one of Lord Gustavus’s servants.
“Then we must go!” said the doctor; and the rest of his pathetic lamentation remained forever buried in his own bosom.
Lord Gustavus was already seated, when they entered the room, with two gentlemen, whom he introduced to our travellers as Lord Noodle and Lord Doodle. These noble lords were both counsellors of state as well as their illustrious host, and had attained that high honour in exactly the same way, viz. they had both succeeded their respective fathers. It is not easy to be very diffuse in their description, as they were members of that honourable and numerous fraternity, who never take the trouble of judging for themselves, but contentedly swim with the stream, whichever way it may flow, and have nothing about them to distinguish them in the slightest degree from the crowd. Lord Gustavus was at present their leading star, and they might very appropriately be termed his satellites. Thus, when any new idea was started, they cautiously refrained from giving an opinion till they found what he thought of it:—they would then look wise, shake their heads, and say, “Exactly so!” “Certainly!” “Nobody can doubt it!” or some of those other convenient ripieno phrases, which fill up so agreeably the pauses in the conversation, without requiring any troublesome exertion of the mental powers of either the hearer or the speaker. These gentlemen had now visited Lord Gustavus, for the purpose of accompanying him and Edric to the Queen’s levee, and as soon as they had taken breakfast, the whole party, with the exception of Dr. Entwerfen, proceeded to court.
When arrived there, however, they found the Queen had not yet risen. “Her Majesty is late this morning,” observed Lord Maysworth, a gentleman loaded with orders and decorations, addressing Lord Gustavus:—“I am not surprised,” said his lordship, “for her most gracious Majesty told me the other day, that she has slept badly for some time.”
“Which, of course, caused you great grief?” asked Dr. Hardman, a little, satirical-looking gentleman in a
