ly discoursed of carving
up his broken flesh, and thus piecing out his abbreviated days. Who was
it, that in capacity of Surgeon, seemed enacting the part of a
Regenerator of life? The withered, shrunken, one-eyed, toothless,
hairless Cuticle; with a trunk half dead--a _memento mori_ to behold!

And while, in those soul-sinking and panic-striking premonitions of
speedy death which almost invariably accompany a severe gun-shot wound,
even with the most intrepid spirits; while thus drooping and dying,
this once robust top-man's eye was now waning in his head like a
Lapland moon being eclipsed in clouds--Cuticle, who for years had still
lived in his withered tabernacle of a body--Cuticle, no doubt sharing
in the common self-delusion of old age--Cuticle must have felt his hold
of life as secure as the grim hug of a grizzly bear. Verily, Life is
more awful than Death; and let no man, though his live heart beat in
him like a cannon--let him not hug his life to himself; for, in the
predestinated necessities of things, that bounding life of his is not a
whit more secure than the life of a man on his death-bed. To-day we
inhale the air with expanding lungs, and life runs through us like a
thousand Niles; but to-morrow we may collapse in death, and all our
veins be dry as the Brook Kedron in a drought.

"And now, young gentlemen," said Cuticle, turning to the Assistant
Surgeons, "while the patient is coming to, permit me to describe to you
the highly-interesting operation I am about to perform."

"Mr. Surgeon of the Fleet," said Surgeon Bandage, "if you are about to
lecture, permit me to present you with your teeth; they will make your
discourse more readily understood." And so saying, Bandage, with a bow,
placed the two semicircles of ivory into Cuticle's hands.

"Thank you, Surgeon Bandage," said Cuticle, and slipped the ivory into
its place.

"In the first place, now, young gentlemen, let me direct your attention
to the excellent preparation before you. I have had it unpacked from
its case, and set up here from my state-room, where it occupies the
spare berth; and all this for your express benefit, young gentlemen.
This skeleton I procured in person from the Hunterian department of the
Royal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we
have no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify
at a juncture like this"--casting an almost benignant glance toward the
patient, now beginning to