there's always this precipitating business going on; and I always told you it was bad for your health, especially your digestion, which was always delicate, besides being wicked and flying in the face of Providence! And now just see what you've done—mixed yourself up like this so that nobody can recognise you; and a nice job for Doctor Coddles to get you right again! And then that hateful moustache—very nice to be set against one's meals by festoons of soup and mayonnaise hanging to it! You'll have the kindness, at least, to shave that off at once."
"'Where is my leg? Has anybody seen my nose?'"
"I—really, my dear, I hardly like to. The fact is, I don't feel as if it were altogether my own property. You see, if I returned the other parts to Mownde—that's that business acquaintance, my dear—without the moustache, he mightn't altogether like—but, then, after all, I suppose this one is only a duplicate of his, and he's all right and complete as it is, and knows nothing about it. Oh, dear, it is puzzling; I don't quite understand all the bearings of the thing yet—"
"No," said Mrs. Moozeby. "And it will come to having to keep an inventory of yourself, and go through it every morning to see if you are all there; a nice waste of time, and pretty late it will make you for town! Besides, the untidiness of leaving pieces of yourself all about in different places! I'm sure George and Mary have quite enough work as it is, folding up your clothes that you throw all over the place; and then what a nice example for baby to grow up with before its eyes! How can you expect the servants to be tidy, and put things away, with you for ever asking where your legs are, or whether anyone has seen your nose? I'm sure if these hateful Mahatmas had to manage a house themselves, they would have thought twice before inventing this detestable nonsense!"
Altogether that reception of Mrs. Moozeby's was a failure, and we all left early; for we could not feel that Moozeby, in his existing state, was a proper substitute for himself; and it was difficult to regard him as our host. It is true that the poor fellow did his very best to pull himself together and try to make us at home; he came down and tried to get up some extempore tableaux vivants, but we could perceive that he was tired and out of sorts—in fact, he experienced a great deal of pain in the leg which was not one of his own, and came to the conclusion that that business acquaintance of his must suffer badly from gout or rheumatism, and we thought it would be a relief to him if we all went away.
Next day, being rather anxious about poor Moozeby, I called for Pinniger, and we went together to see how he was getting on. We found him at home as we had expected; for, as he said, it would not be of much use to go to town, as neither the clerks nor anyone else would recognise him; besides which, he had a morbid sensitiveness about venturing out and showing himself, being jerky and spasmodic in his movements in consequence of a difficulty in working the parts which were not his own, and which required practice to get used to.
He was very miserable, poor fellow; among other things, he had developed a violent cold in his nose—or rather, in his business acquaintance's nose. He recollected having noticed Mownde standing in
