ed--I assure you,
Madame Pratolungo, MY health has suffered. Since this sad occurrence, my
stomach has given way. My balance is lost--my usual regularity is gone. I
am subject--entirely through this miserable business--to fits of morbid
appetite. I want things at wrong times--breakfast in the middle of the
night; dinner at four in the morning. I want something now!" Mr. Finch
stopped, horror-struck at his condition; pondering with his eyebrows
fiercely knit, and his hand pressed convulsively on the lower buttons of
his rusty black waistcoat. Mrs. Finch's watery blue eyes looked across
the room at me, in a moist melancholy of conjugal distress. The rector,
suddenly enlightened after his consultation with his stomach, strutted to
the door, flung it wide open, and called down the kitchen stairs with a
voice of thunder, "Poach me an egg!" He came back into the room--held
another consultation, keeping his eyes severely fixed on me--strutted
back in a furious hurry to the door--and bellowed a counter-order down
the kitchen-stairs, "No egg! Do me a red herring!" He came back for the
second time, with his eyes closed and his hand laid distractedly on his
head. He appealed alternately to Mrs. Finch and to me. "See for
yourselves--Mrs. Finch! Madame Pratolungo!--see for yourselves what a
state I am in. It's simply pitiable. I hesitate about the most trifling
things. First, I think I want a poached egg--then, I think I want a red
herring--now I don't know what I want. Upon my word of honor as a
clergyman and a gentleman, I don't know what I want! Morbid appetite all
day; morbid wakefulness all night--what a condition! I can't rest. I
disturb my wife at night. Mrs. Finch! I disturb you at night. How many
times--since this misfortune fell upon us--do I turn in bed before I fall
off to sleep? Eight times? Are you certain of it? Don't exaggerate! Are
you certain you counted! Very well: good creature! I never remember--I
assure you, Madame Pratolungo, I never remember--such a complete upset as
this before. The nearest approach to it was some years since, at my
wife's last confinement but four. Mrs. Finch! was it at your last
confinement but four? or your last but five? Your last but four? Are you
sure. Are you certain you are not misleading our friend here? Very well:
good creature! Pecuniary difficulties, Madame Pratolungo, were at the
bottom of it on that last occasion. I got over the pecuniary
difficulties. How am I to get over this?