Page 746 - ULYSSES
P. 746
Ulysses
young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish
simper and with immodest squirmings of his body, how
you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I’m all of a
wibbly wobbly. Why, you’re as bad as dear little Father
Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke
me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a
lady what’s got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on
her. The young surgeon, however, rose and begged the
company to excuse his retreat as the nurse had just then
informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful
providence had been pleased to put a period to the
sufferings of the lady who was enceinte which she had
borne with a laudable fortitude and she had given birth to
a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those who,
without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an
ennobling profession which, saving the reverence due to
the Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the
earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I could
produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her
noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword,
should be a glorious incentive in the human breast. I
cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the
amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and
the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most
745 of 1305