and stomach, but also affected all the other organs of sense, and
even invaded her imagination, which at this period seemed to be
strangely diseased.

One time she longed to pinch her husband's ear; and it was with
infinite difficulty that his sister could prevail upon him to undergo
the operation. Yet this task was easy, in comparison with another
she undertook for the gratification of Mrs. Pickle's unaccountable
desire; which was no other than to persuade the commodore to submit
his chin to the mercy of the big-bellied lady, who ardently wished
for an opportunity of plucking three black hairs from his beard.
When this proposal was first communicated to Mr. Trunnion by the
husband, his answer was nothing but a dreadful effusion of oaths,
accompanied with such a stare, and delivered in such a tone
of voice, as terrified the poor beseecher into immediate silence;
so that Mrs. Grizzle was fain to take the whole enterprise upon
herself, and next day went to the garrison accordingly, where,
having obtained entrance by means of the lieutenant, who, while
his commander was asleep, ordered her to be admitted for the joke's
sake, she waited patiently till he turned out, and then accosted
him in the yard, where he used to perform his morning walk. He
was thunderstruck at the appearance of a woman in a place he had
hitherto kept sacred from the whole sex, and immediately began to
utter an apostrophe to Tom Pipes, whose turn it was then to watch;
when Mrs. Grizzle, falling on her knees before him, conjured him,
with many pathetic supplications, to hear and grant her request,
which was no sooner signified, than he bellowed in such an outrageous
manner that the whole court re-echoed the opprobrious term b--, and
the word damnation, which he repeated with surprising volubility,
without any sort of propriety or connection; and retreated into