"I have said nothing," resumed my father, slightly bowing his broad
temples, "of the Book of books, for that is the lignum vitm, the
cardinal medicine for all. These are but the subsidiaries; for as you
may remember, my dear Kitty, that I have said before,--we can never keep
the system quite right unless we place just in the centre of the great
ganglionic system, whence the nerves carry its influence gently and
smoothly through the whole frame, The Saffron Bag!"

(1) Cicero's joke on a senator who was the son of a tailor: "Thou hast
touched the thing sharply" (or with a needle, acu).

(2) Rubruquis, sect. xii.




CHAPTER VI.


After breakfast the next morning I took my hat to go out. when my
father, looking at me, and seeing by my countenance that I had not
slept, said gently,--

"My dear Pisistratus, you have not tried my medicine yet."

"What medicine, sir?"

"Robert Hall."