"Nothing in it!" cried he, triumphantly, after a moment's deliberation.
"The evil is only in idea. Such is the boasted reason of mortals!" With
that reflection, nevertheless, he was about to withdraw his feet from
their voluntary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly gave way and the
partition fell back into its clasp. Dr. Riceabocca was fairly caught,--
"Facilis descensus--sed revocare gradum!" True, his hands were at
liberty, but his legs were so long that, being thus fixed, they kept the
hands from the rescue; and as Dr. Riccabocca's form was by no means
supple, and the twin parts of the wood stuck together with that firmness
of adhesion which things newly painted possess, so, after some vain
twists and contortions, in which he succeeded at length (not without a
stretch of the sinews that made them crack again) in finding the clasp
and breaking his nails thereon, the victim of his own rash experiment
resigned himself to his fate. Dr. Riceabocca was one of those men who
never do things by halves. When I say he resigned himself, I mean not
only Christian but philosophical resignation. The position was not quite
so pleasant as, theoretically, he had deemed it; but he resolved to make
himself as comfortable as he could. At first, as is natural in all
troubles to men who have grown familiar with that odoriferous comforter
which Sir Walter Raleigh is said first to have bestowed upon the
Caucasian races, the doctor made use of his hands to extract from his
pocket his pipe, match-box, and tobacco-pouch. After a few whiffs he
would have been quite reconciled to his situation, but for the discovery
that the sun had shifted its place in the heavens, and was no longer
shaded from his face by the elm-tree. The doctor again looked round, and
perceived that his red silk umbrella, which he had laid aside when he had
seated himself by Lenny, was within arm's reach. Possessing himself of
this treasure, he soon expanded its friendly folds. And thus, doubly
fortified within and without, under shade of the umbrella, and his pipe