Laura Revel, who
suffered extremely from the motion of the vessel, and the remedies which
she had applied to relieve her uneasiness. Miss Laura Revel had been told
by somebody, previous to her embarkation, that the most effectual remedy
for sea-sickness was gingerbread. In pursuance of the advice received, she
had provided herself with ten or twelve squares of this commodity, about
one foot by eighteen inches, which squares she had commenced upon as soon
as she came on board, and had never ceased to swallow, notwithstanding
various interruptions. The more did her stomach reject it the more did she
force it down, until, what with deglutition, _et vice versa_, she had been
reduced to a state of extreme weakness, attended with fever.

How many panaceas have been offered without success for two
evils--sea-sickness and hydrophobia! and between these two there appears to
be a link, for sea-sickness as surely ends in hydrophobia, as hydrophobia
does in death. The sovereign remedy prescribed, when I first went to sea,
was a piece of fat pork, tied to a string, to be swallowed, and then pulled
up again; the dose to be repeated until effective. I should not have
mentioned this well-known remedy, as it has long been superseded by other
nostrums, were it not that this maritime prescription has been the origin
of two modern improvements in the medical catalogue--one is the
stomach-pump, evidently borrowed from this simple engine; the other is the
very successful prescription now in vogue, to those who are weak in the
digestive organs, to eat fat bacon for breakfast, which I have no doubt was
suggested to Doctor Vance, from what he had been eye-witness to on board of
a man-of-war.

But here I am digressing again from Doctor Plausible to Doctor Vance.
Reader, I never lose the opportunity of drawing a moral; and what an
important one is here! Observe how difficult it is to regain the right path
when once you have quitted it. Let my error be a warning to you in your
journey through life, and my digressions preserve you from diverging from
the beaten track, which, as the Americans would say, leads _clean slick_ on
to happiness and peace.

Doctor Plausible was a personable man, apparently about five-and-thirty
years old; he wore a little powder in his hair, black silk stockings, and
knee-breeches. In this I consider Doctor Plausible was right; the above
look much more scientific than Wellington trousers; and much depends upon
the exteri