MY TURKISH BATH.
DEAR PUNCHINELLO: It happened to be eleven o'clock some time during yesterday forenoon.
I generally take something at that hour.
Yesterday I took a Turkish Bath.
I took a horse-car. (That, however, is neither here nor there: but it got within two blocks of there at 11.25.) I ran up the steps of the T.B. establishment, and wired the inmates. The door flew open, and an ideal voter, erst a chattel (I hope I am not obscure in this deeply interesting portion of the narrative) pointed his thumb over his shoulder, displayed a choice assortment of ivory, and chuckled with great natural ease. I supposed this to be a custom with the colored population of Turkey, and passed on.
Everything was Turkish. I was struck with the order of the bath: also the scimetary of the apartments. As I think I before remarked,--I passed on.
The M.D. proprietor shook hands with me very cordially. I also shook hands with him. I told him that I wanted no ceremony; but if agreeable to him, I would gird up my loins and go in. He intimated that the only ceremony was to fund a small portion of the contents of my pocket-book. I am a little hard of hearing,--and I passed on.
An assistant, in the light and airy costume which I have so often noticed in Central Africa, in midsummer, beckoned to me, after I had laid aside a quantity of goods, (belonging to my tailor, and other downtown business men,) and I followed him.
The room we entered was heated by what I took to be a successful furnace. I must have been mistaken, however, for I understood the assistant to apologise because, by reason of a defect in the flues, they had been able to get the temperature up only to about 475 degrees that morning. I was a little disappointed, but simply suggested that the thermometer was Fair in Height; but if I felt chilly I would send out for some blankets.
He laid me on a slatted conch.
I experienced a gentle glow.
Afterwards, (I don't know why, exactly, I have always attributed it to the temperature,) I felt hot--hotter--Hottentotter! It seemed as though the equator ran right along the line of my back-bone.
I didn't care.
I couldn't recollect whether my name was SHADRACH, MESHACH, or ABEDNEGO; but I was baking and sizzling just as furiously as though I had paid in advance. My pores were opening, and the perspiration was immense. A red bandanna handkerchief would have been swamped.
There was a bald-headed man next me. He said he had been lying there three weeks, and he was going home next Saturday if he didn't strike oil. I grappled with the allusion, and replied that that was a poor opening any way, and I didn't believe I could myself lie there so coolly.
Waiting till my identity was pretty much gone, I dropped into another marble hall. The assistant (to whom my warmest thanks are due) scooped up what was left of me and laid me on a slab.
The assistant said I needed him, but, to the best of my recollection, he kneaded me. He went all over me, taking up a collection, and did first-rate. I threw off all reserve--about half a pound, I should judge. He seemed to take a fancy to me. I never knew a man to get so intimate on short acquaintance.
We talked rationally on a good many subjects.
He said he barely got a living there. I was surprised. I supposed he managed to scrape together a good deal in the course of a year.
He said he wanted to go into some wholesale house. I ventured to predict that success awaited him in the rubber business. In fact, we kept up quite a stream of conversation, which he supplemented with a hose that played over me in a gentle, leisurely manner, as if I were fully insured.
He then shoved me into a deep-water tank where the "Rules for Restoring Persons apparently Drowned" whizzed through my mind, and I came very near forgetting that I didn't know how to swim. I managed, however, to fish myself out in season to observe the bald-headed ANANIAS, who murmured that he had been laid upon the table and should take a peel!
I came out to the drying-room, and made them think I was General GRANT, by calling for a cigar. I drank a cup of coffee. After a while I rattled into my clothes and felt better. So much so, that I did what I seldom do, walked clean home.
If I live to be ninety-eight years old, and am pensioned by Congress, the explanation which I shall give to the country at large is that it is due to that Turkish Bath. I can't tell you what I owe to it.
SARSFIELD YOUNG.
