When he had gone Gran'pa turned to me with a great sigh.
"George," he said, "for peace and quietness, give me the haunts of the wild gorilla every time. Another day or two of this would kill me. I must go and see Sally. I want comforting. . . ."
[CHAPTER XVII]
SALLY SLIPS BACK
The first person to recover from the operation and exhibit clear signs of rejuvenation was a red-faced little man, called Jonathan Abbott. In less than forty-eight hours after the new glands had been grafted, he not only played Gran'pa a game of chess, but actually beat him (in thirty-one moves). It was a great intellectual achievement which very much annoyed Gran'pa.
"Mate in three! . . . By jingo!" exclaimed Abbott, ecstatically. "This game takes me back forty years—to the time when I was on the county team!"
His boyish flippancy was a great comfort to the other patients, who naturally all anticipated the same marvellous results in their own particular cases.
To see the old people returning to their youth was like watching a brood of chickens hatch. One by one they crept out of the shells of their old age, fluttered their wings and began to manifest a keen desire for activity.
Intoxicated with youthful exuberance, Jonathan Abbott used to go outside the sanatorium and run about like a kitten after a fly, while those who were not yet capable of such exertions stood and encouraged him. They sang songs, laughed, gesticulated, stretched themselves, and emitted little, self-satisfied grunts.
In spite of the powerful properties of gorilla glands, I do not think that they alone accounted for these extraordinary scenes at Windhuk. No single remedy for old age could have wrought such a change in so short a time. I was inclined to agree with Dr. Martin that the previous administration of radioactive potashes and thyroid gland extract, the open air life, the physical exercises, and the peculiar, contagious atmosphere associated with crowds, all played very important parts. The resultant of these forces was so strong that the poor old brains and bodies were seething with superfluous energy.