Sometimes things do not go smoothly. Suppose the kitchen-maid to be
taken with fits just before dinner-time; there will be a reverberating
echo of disturbance throughout the whole organisation of the palace. But
the oftener she has fits, the more easily will the household know what
it is all about when she is taken with them. On the first occasion Lady
Croesus will send some one rushing down into the kitchen; there will, in
fact, be a general flow of blood (i.e. household) to the part affected
(that is to say, to the scullery-maid); the doctor will be sent for and
all the rest of it. On each repetition of the fits the neighbouring
organs, reverting to a more primary undifferentiated condition, will
discharge duties for which they were not engaged, in a manner for which
no one would have given them credit; and the disturbance will be less
and less each time, till by and by, at the sound of the crockery
smashing below, Lady Croesus will just look up to papa and say:
"My dear, I am afraid Sarah has got another fit."
And papa will say she will probably be better again soon, and will go on
reading his newspaper.
In course of time the whole thing will come to be managed automatically
downstairs without any references either to papa, the cerebrum, or to
mamma, the cerebellum, or even to the _medulla oblongata_, the
housekeeper.
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