the door after you, if you please." As the doctor and I went down, my
mother continued the song--

"And then I met a little man,
Couldn't say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg
And sent him downstairs."

As soon as we were in the parlor, I acquainted the doctor with what had
happened. "I'm sure I thought she was dead," said I, when I had finished
the story.

"Jack, when I asked you where your mother was bad, external or
internal, you replied both, and a great deal more besides. So she
is--internally, externally, and infernally bad," said the doctor,
laughing. "And so she amputated your father's pigtail, did she, the
Delilah? Pity one could not amputate her head, it would make a good
woman of her. Good-by, Jack; I must go and look after Tom, he's
swallowed a whole yard of stick-liquorice by this time."

Soon afterward Ben the Whaler came in to inquire after my father, and I
told him what had occurred. He was very indignant at my mother's
conduct, and, as soon as the affair was known, so were all the tenants
of Fisher's Alley. When my mother went out, or had words with any of her
neighbors, the retort was invariably, "Who sent the press-gang after her
own husband?" or "Who cut off the tail from her husband's back? Wasn't
that a _genteel_ trick?" All this worried my mother, and she became very
morose and ill-tempered. I believe she would have left the alley if she
had not taken a long lease of the house. She had now imbibed a decided
hatred for me, which she never failed to show upon every occasion, for