The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories Part 25

'All right. Show me to my room, and send the cook to bed; there is not going to be any hurry.'

The professor took me up one flight of stairs and showed me into a most inviting and comfortable apartment consisting of parlour, bedchamber, and bathroom.

The front windows looked out over a far-reaching spread of green glades and valleys, and tumbled hills clothed with forests--a n.o.ble solitude unvexed by the fussy world. In the parlour were many shelves filled with books. The professor said he would now leave me to myself; and added:

'Smoke and read as much as you please, drink all the water you like.

When you get hungry, ring and give your order, and I will decide whether it shall be filled or not. Yours is a stubborn, bad case, and I think the first fourteen dishes in the bill are each and all too delicate for its needs. I ask you as a favour to restrain yourself and not call for them.'

'Restrain myself, is it? Give yourself no uneasiness. You are going to save money by me. The idea of coaxing a sick man's appet.i.te back with this buzzard-fare is clear insanity.'

I said it with bitterness, for I felt outraged by this calm, cold talk over these heartless new engines of a.s.sa.s.sination. The doctor looked grieved, but not offended. He laid the bill of fare of the commode at my bed's head, 'so that it would be handy,' and said:

'Yours is not the worst case I have encountered, by any means; still it is a bad one and requires robust treatment; therefore I shall be gratified if you will restrain yourself and skip down to No. 15 and begin with that.'

Then he left me and I began to undress, for I was dog-tired and very sleepy. I slept fifteen hours and woke up finely refreshed at ten the next morning. Vienna coffee! It was the first thing I thought of--that unapproachable luxury--that sumptuous coffee-house coffee, compared with which all other European coffee and all American hotel coffee is mere fluid poverty. I rang, and ordered it; also Vienna bread, that delicious invention. The servant spoke through the wicket in the door and said--but you know what he said. He referred me to the bill of fare. I allowed him to go--I had no further use for him.

After the bath I dressed and started for a walk, and got as far as the door. It was locked on the outside. I rang, and the servant came and explained that it was another rule. The seclusion of the patient was required until after the first meal. I had not been particularly anxious to get out before; but it was different now. Being locked in makes a person wishful to get out. I soon began to find it difficult to put in the time. At two o'clock I had been twenty-six hours without food. I had been growing hungry for some time; I recognised that I was not only hungry now, but hungry with a strong adjective in front of it. Yet I was not hungry enough to face the bill of fare.

I must put in the time somehow. I would read and smoke. I did it; hour by hour. The books were all of one breed--s.h.i.+pwrecks; people lost in deserts; people shut up in caved-in mines; people starving in besieged cities. I read about all the revolting dishes that ever famis.h.i.+ng men had stayed their hunger with. During the first hours these things nauseated me: hours followed in which they did not so affect me; still other hours followed in which I found myself smacking my lips over some tolerably infernal messes. When I had been without food forty-five hours I ran eagerly to the bell and ordered the second dish in the bill, which was a sort of dumplings containing a compost made of caviar and tar.

It was refused me. During the next fifteen hours I visited the bell every now and then and ordered a dish that was further down the list.

Always a refusal. But I was conquering prejudice after prejudice, right along; I was making sure progress; I was creeping up on No. 15 with deadly certainty, and my heart beat faster and faster, my hopes rose higher and higher.

At last when food had not pa.s.sed my lips for sixty hours, victory was mine, and I ordered No. 15:

'Soft-boiled spring chicken--in the egg; six dozen, hot and fragrant!'

In fifteen minutes it was there; and the doctor along with it, rubbing his hands with joy. He said with great excitement:

'It's a cure, it's a cure! I knew I could do it. Dear sir, my grand system never failed--never. You've got your appet.i.te back--you know you have; say it and make me happy.'

'Bring on your carrion--I can eat anything in the bill!'

'Oh, this is n.o.ble, this is splendid--but I knew I could do it, the system never fails. How are the birds?'

'Never was anything so delicious in the world; and yet as a rule I don't care for game. But don't interrupt me, don't--I can't spare my mouth, I really can't.'

Then the doctor said:

'The cure is perfect. There is no more doubt nor danger. Let the poultry alone; I can trust you with a beefsteak, now.'

The beefsteak came--as much as a basketful of it--with potatoes, and Vienna bread and coffee; and I ate a meal then that was worth all the costly preparation I had made for it. And dripped tears of grat.i.tude into the gravy all the time--grat.i.tude to the doctor for putting a little plain common-sense into me when I had been empty of it so many, many years.

II

Thirty years ago Haimberger went off on a long voyage in a sailing-s.h.i.+p.

There were fifteen pa.s.sengers on board. The table-fare was of the regulation pattern of the day: At 7 in the morning, a cup of bad coffee in bed; at 9, breakfast: bad coffee, with condensed milk; soggy rolls, crackers, salt fish; at 1 P.M., luncheon: cold tongue, cold ham, cold corned beef, soggy cold rolls, crackers; 5 P.M., dinner: thick pea soup, salt fish, hot corned beef and sour kraut, boiled pork and beans, pudding; 9 till 11 P.M., supper: tea, with condensed milk, cold tongue, cold ham, pickles, sea-biscuit, pickled oysters, pickled pigs' feet, grilled bones, golden buck.

At the end of the first week eating had ceased, nibbling had taken its place. The pa.s.sengers came to the table, but it was partly to put in the time, and partly because the wisdom of the ages commanded them to be regular in their meals. They were tired of the coa.r.s.e and monotonous fare, and took no interest in it, had no appet.i.te for it. All day and every day they roamed the s.h.i.+p half hungry, plagued by their gnawing stomachs, moody, untalkative, miserable. Among them were three confirmed dyspeptics. These became shadows in the course of three weeks. There was also a bed-ridden invalid; he lived on boiled rice; he could not look at the regular dishes.

Now came s.h.i.+pwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food. Provisions ran lower and lower. The appet.i.tes improved, then.

When nothing was left but raw ham and the ration of that was down to two ounces a day per person, the appet.i.tes were perfect. At the end of fifteen days the dyspeptics, the invalid, and the most delicate ladies in the party were chewing sailor-boots in ecstasy, and only complaining because the supply of them was limited. Yet these were the same people who couldn't endure the s.h.i.+p's tedious corned beef and sour kraut and other crudities. They were rescued by an English vessel. Within ten days the whole fifteen were in as good condition as they had been when the s.h.i.+pwreck occurred.

'They had suffered no damage by their adventure,' said the professor.

'Do you note that?'

'Yes.'

'Do you note it well?'

'Yes--I think I do.'

'But you don't. You hesitate. You don't rise to the importance of it. I will say it again--with emphasis--not one of them suffered any damage.'

'Now I begin to see. Yes, it was indeed remarkable.'

'Nothing of the kind. It was perfectly natural. There was no reason why they should suffer damage. They were undergoing Nature's Appet.i.te-Cure, the best and wisest in the world.'

'Is that where you got your idea?'

'That is where I got it.'

'It taught those people a valuable lesson.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Why shouldn't I? You seem to think it taught you one.'

'That is nothing to the point. I am not a fool.'

'I see. Were they fools?'

'They were human beings.'

'Is it the same thing?'

'Why do you ask? You know it yourself. As regards his health--and the rest of the things--the average man is what his environment and his superst.i.tions have made him; and their function is to make him an a.s.s.

He can't add up three or four new circ.u.mstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the earth in a year.'

'Those pa.s.sengers learned no lesson, then?'

'Not a sign of it. They went to their regular meals in the English s.h.i.+p, and pretty soon they were nibbling again--nibbling, appet.i.teless, disgusted with the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their outraged stomachs cursing and swearing and whining and supplicating all day long.

And in vain, for they were the stomachs of fools.'

'Then, as I understand it, your scheme is--'