CHAPTER II.

A CONVERSATION BETWIXT THE AUTHOR AND HIS BOSOM FRIEND, JOHN TICKLE, ESQ.

However, it was not my fate to die in good earnest. By-and-by I opened my eyes, feeling in very passable health, though somewhat weak and dejected.

The devils, or my late attendants, whoever they were, had all vanished, and with them noise, darkness, and the various ill odours that had afflicted my nostrils. I was lying in a very good bed, and chamber with curtained windows, the curtains being closed, to keep out the sunshine that was playing on them; and at my side there sat in an arm-chair a young gentleman of a buckish appearance, sound asleep. The creaking of the bed, as I rose on my elbow, roused him; he started, rubbed his eyes, and, looking me in the face, burst into a hearty laugh.

"Bravo!" he cried; "I told old Boneset so! I could watch as comfortably as ever a child's nurse of Messina. I thought I should have the child wake me with crying! I vow to gad, I've been snoozing all night. And so you've opened your peepers like an honest man at last, Dawky!--Pray, what the devil made you drown yourself?"

And here the young gentleman, seizing me by the hand, fell a laughing again, and that with more zest than before.

"Sah!" said I, looking at him with both surprise and confusion; for, though his voice and face seemed familiar to me, I could not for the life of me say who he was. "Sa--ah, really I--ah--" and here I stopped; for, first, I knew not what to say, and secondly, my bewildered looks set him into such a roar of merriment, that there was no saying a word to him.

"Come, you dog," said he, with a grin here and a roar there, "don't be comical just after coming out of the grave. A man just fished out of a river, and rescued from death after a hard fight between the doctor and the devil, should be serious and ecclesiastical, solemn of visage, and sanctified of conversation. No joking, you dog; but get up, Absalomize, and talk. No joking, I say; no joking with Jack Tickle."

As he spoke he seized me by the shoulder, and dragged me half out of bed.

"Ged and demmee!" said I, "remember my foot!" For my toe catching in the bed-cord, I suddenly recollected the gouty member.

"I will," said he, with another roar; "for, the Lord knows, 'tis the best part of you. Spoil Dawky's foot, and ruin him with women and shoe-makers for ever! The one ceases to adore, and the other trusts no longer."

"But I mean the gout," said I.

"The fiddlestick and fiddle!" said he: "whoever heard of a poor dandy, living on tick, having the gout? Up, Dawky, my dog, and tell me what set you to drowning? If 'twas about Betty Small, 'twas a small matter. What! drown for being jilted! If 'twas about the tailor's bill, 'twas still more ridiculous. I say, Dawky, my fellow, _what_ made you drown yourself?"

"Drown myself!" said I; but I said it with a stare. The odd behaviour and expressions of the young gentleman, who called himself Jack Tickle (a name that I never remembered to have heard before in my life, although his countenance was certainly highly familiar), and certain queer associations his appearance gave birth to; the singularity of my feelings; and, more than all, the appearance of my foot and leg (the former of which, instead of being tumid and red with gout, was white, and of elegant shape, while the latter, which but the day before had a calf to compare with any old Quaker's in Arch-street, was now as lank as a sword-blade); I say, these circumstances had the effect to increase my confusion to that degree, that I felt like one who is asleep and knows it--provided one ever did or can feel so.

In the midst of all I suddenly cast my eyes upon a goodly large looking-glass that hung against the wall, and saw my reflection therein. It was the image of Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins! his exact representation, perfect in beard and visage, save that the former was in great disorder, and the latter somewhat white, and equally perfect in figure, as far as I could compare a man in buff and linen to one in the full panoply of the tailor.

"My ged!" said I, "I am transformed again!"

And with that I made a hop up to the glass to look at myself closer. There was no mistaking the matter, even if the looking-glass had. I looked at my legs, and I gave a tweak at my mustaches. My shoulders were elegantly narrow, and my foot as sound as a savage's. I jumped up, cut a pigeon-wing, and then, descending, attempted a ballet-dancer's pirouette; after which I looked again into the glass. I was a young man of twenty-five, and the most elegant fellow I ever laid eyes on!

I ran to Jack, and hugged him round the neck, crying, "Lard, Jack, you rogue, I'm the most comical creature that ever lived!"

"Ay," said he, smothering with laughter and my embraces together; "but what made you drown yourself?"

I recollected all about it, and suddenly felt astonished. I remembered how I had jumped into the water, and how I had fished myself out, as dead as a poker; that is, how Mr. Higginson had fished me, or rather how I had fished Mr. Dawkins. I remembered how I, John Hazlewood Higginson, had wished to be Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins, and now I was Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins himself, and nobody but he. I sat down on the bedside, marvelling how such a thing could be; and the wonder of it was indeed amazing. That my spirit should creep into a man's body, though strange enough, was not so prodigiously surprising; but that my spirit and body together (for I did not know it had been otherwise disposed of), especially so corpulent a one as John H. Higginson's, should get into one--that was truly marvellous.

But my study was brought to an end by Tickle suddenly exclaiming, with a voice of concern, "Curse him! gad, poor fellow, I believe he has washed his wits out! He has gone mad!"

"No more than you have," said I, shaking him by the hand; "but you must allow it is a most extraordinary affair."

"'Pon honour, yes," said he, laughing as hard as ever; "but what made you throw yourself into the river?"

"Why," said I, in a hurry, "to save Dawkins."

"To save Dawkins!!!" said he, looking at me as one would look at a shoemaker who brings a pair of shoes home the day he has promised them.

"That is," said I, "to save Higginson."

"To save Higginson!!!" he cried, with such a roar of laughter as made my teeth rattle; "why there were twenty people saw Higginson drag _you_ out! I say, Dawky, no lillibullering--what did you jump into the river for?"

"I jumped," said I, quite in a quandary, "after my hat."

At this answer my friend Jack Tickle threw himself upon the bed, where he rolled over and over, until his coat was covered with down and feathers, which cooled his transports a little.

"I see," said he, "I see! It was the last of the family; for hatters' tick was exhausted! Right, Dawky; in such straits of credit, I think I should have jumped after mine! Who would not fight, roast, or drown, for his hat, when it was the last decent one he ever expected to have on his head? I am glad _this_ was the cause: it makes me think better of you. I thought, like the rest, it was on account of your disappointment from the adorable Betty--"

"The devil take Betty!" said I, but without well knowing why.

"He _has!_" cried Jack, uproariously; "at least a _poor_ devil has. She has thrown away her seventy thousand upon a fellow no more to be compared with you than a tame goose with a wild one: and instead of spending it like a man, the rascal will buy stocks, and save it. I say, Dawky, you must have been surprised at her conduct--as we all were;--really, we thought you had her; and there was no one more certain than the fair Miss Smith."

"The devil take the fair Miss Smith!" said I.

"He will," said Tickle, shaking his head and laughing; "or, if _he_ don't, I don't know who will; for it is a clear matter--dad's done up entirely, and they say the sheriff is already making an inventory of his chattels. A great pity, Dawky; for, if she had but money, Miss Smith would be certainly an angel incarnate--a nymph, a houri--the finest woman in town. I say, Dawky, I think she almost had you!"