little oyster.

Now Dr. Porpoise put a plaster on the little oyster's chest and a blister
at her feet. He bade her eat nothing but a tiny bit of sea-foam on toast
twice a day. Every two hours she was to take a spoonful of cod-liver oil,
and before each meal a wineglassful of the essence of distilled
cuttlefish. The plaster she didn't mind, but the blister and the cod-liver
oil were terrible; and when it came to the essence of distilled cuttlefish
--well, she just couldn't stand it! In vain her mother reasoned with her,
and promised her a new doll and a skipping-rope and a lot of other nice
things: the little oyster would have none of the horrid drug; until at
last her father, abandoning his dignity in order to maintain his
authority, had to hold her down by main strength and pour the medicine
into her mouth. This was, as you will allow, quite dreadful.

But this treatment did the little oyster no good; and her parents made up
their minds that they would send for another doctor, and one of a
different school. Fortunately they were in a position to indulge in almost
any expense, since the father-oyster himself was president of one of the
largest banks of Newfoundland. So Dr. Sculpin came with his neat little
medicine-box under his arm. And when he had looked at the sick little
oyster's tongue, and had taken her temperature, and had felt her pulse, he
said he knew what ailed her; but he did not tell anybody what it was. He
threw away the plasters, the blisters, the cod-liver oil, and the essence
of distilled cuttlefish, and said it was a wonder that the poor child had
lived through it all!

"Will you please bring me two tumblerfuls of water?" he remarked to the
mother-oyster.