standing with his back against the table, thus began:  “I take it for granted that, in consulting me, you wish to know what I should do for myself, were I in a predicament similar to yourself.  Now, I have no reason to suppose that you are in any particular predicament; and the terrible mischief which you apprehend, depends, I take it, altogether upon the stomach.  Mind,—­at present I have no reason to believe that there is any thing else the matter with you.” (Here my friend was about to disclose sundry dreadful maladies with which he believed himself afflicted, but he was interrupted with “Diddle-dum, diddle-dum, diddle-dum dee!” uttered in the same smooth tone as the previous part of the address—­and he was silent.)—­“Now, your stomach being out of order, it is my duty to explain to you how to put it to rights again; and, in my whimsical way, I shall give you an illustration of my position; for I like to tell people something that they will remember.  The kitchen, that is, your stomach, being out of order, the garret (pointing to the head) cannot be right, and egad! every room in the house becomes affected.  Repair the injury in the kitchen,—­remedy the evil there,—­(now don’t bother,) and all will be right.  This you must do by diet.  If you put improper food into your stomach, by Gad you play the very devil with it, and with the whole machine besides.  Vegetable matter ferments, and becomes gaseous; while animal substances are changed into a putrid, abominable, and acrid stimulus. (Don’t bother again!) You are going to ask, ‘What has all this to do with my eye?’ I will tell you.  Anatomy teaches us, that the skin is a continuation of the membrane which lines the stomach; and your own observation will inform you, that the delicate linings of the mouth, throat, nose, and eyes, are nothing more.  Now some people acquire preposterous noses, others blotches on the face and different parts of the body, others inflammation of the eyes—­all arising from irritation of the stomach.  People laugh at me for talking so much about the stomach.  I sometimes tell this story to forty different people of a morning, and some won’t listen to me; so we quarrel, and they go and abuse me all over the town.  I can’t help it—­they came to me for my advice, and I give it them, if they will take it.  I can’t do any more.  Well, sir, as to the question of diet.  I must refer you to my book. (Here the professor smiled, and continued smiling as he proceeded.) There are only about a dozen pages—­and you will find, beginning at page 73, all that it is necessary for you to know.  I am christened ‘Doctor My-Book,’ and satirized under that name all over England; but who would sit and listen to a long lecture of twelve pages, or remember one-half of it when it was done?  So I have reduced my directions into writing, and there they are for any body to follow, if they please.