enraged in view of such
an uncommon defiance), began his dispositions.

And now the battle of the giants raged in good earnest; and as there was a
kind of Pindaric grotesqueness about it which could not fail to attract
observers, it became first the hospital talk, and then the subject of no
inconsiderable amount of by-betting, with the odds in favor of "Yellow
Jack." One week from the period of his inoculation, the victim had
developed the most picturesque outside that it is possible for any man to
possess east or west of the Malayan dominions, and inwardly, a type of the
black vomit that would have set an undertaker's teeth on edge. The
doctors, examining their watches at a safe distance, thought that he could
not last twenty-four hours, and the subject of the disorder, transferring
an abandoned kerchief to the rear of his shirt front, gave himself but
half that time. But doctors, though controlling the other features of the
business with tolerable accuracy, are not always infallible as to "time
when." It was three days before a coffin was ordered, and pending the half
hour required to produce a fair example of pest-house carpentry, Karl
Konstant struggled back to shore with the announcement that he had changed
his mind, and a sarcastic appeal to his medical attendants "not to weep."
The "box" was found to square the dimensions of a stiff in a neighboring
ward, who had accomplished the stormy voyage in forty-eight hours, and
into it he was jammed, and committed to the cartman with an injunction to
drive fast.

K. K. K., Esq., was now billed "for five days, only with a new cast and
entire change of scenery," the latter part of this announcement referring
to an abandoned hut on the river shore, one mile below the city. The
doctors, despairing of the disease, declared that the stench in his body
would suffocate him in twenty-four hours (extending the time as above, to
avoid accidents), and dismissed him to an aged negress, with instructions
to draw on the city for boneyard supplies. Situated in this quiet retreat,
our hero could lie "heels uppermost," and number his waning breaths, or
hearken to the death-rattle in his throat, without aught to molest or make
him afraid, and controlled by that sweet imperturbability of temper so
necessary to perfect rest amid such scenes. He had enjoyed his new lease
of happiness two full days before it was thought necessary to apply to his
city correspondents, and as there was some delay