a light bursts through the walls of his house and he hears voices. Hastily throwing one of the coats of the stomach over his shoulders, he springs to his feet just in time to catch about a nickel's worth of warm beef tea down the back of his neck.
The patient now wears about two feet of inch hose, one end of which is introduced into the upper and anterior lobe of the stomach. The other he has embellished with a plain cork stopper. I asked him if he would join me in a drink of water from the ice-cooler, and he said he would, under the circumstances. He said that he had just taken one, but would not mind taking one more with me. He then removed the stopper from his new Goodyear esophagus, inserted a neat little tin funnel, with which he was able to introduce the water. It gently settled down and disappeared in his depths, and then, putting away the garden hose, he accepted a dollar and gave me a history of the case as I have set it forth above, or substantially so, at least.
I could not help thinking of him afterward. I tried to imagine him on his way to Europe over a stormy sea; the surprise of his stomach when it found itself frustrated and beaten at its own game, and all that. Then I thought of him as the honored guest of some great corporation or club, and at the banquet, when the president, in a few well-chosen words, apparently born of the moment but really wearing trousers, says, "Gentlemen, we have with us this evening," etc., etc.; and then rising, all the members join in a toast to the guest. Touching his glass to theirs, and then gracefully unreeling his garden hose, he takes from his pocket the small funnel, and, gently sipping the generous wine through his tin pharynx, he begins his well-digested response.
Nature did not do much for this poor lad, but science has stepped in and made him a man of mark. He went to bed unknown. He awoke to find himself noted. He went to sleep with ordinary tastes. He arose with no taste at all. Thus, through the medical treatment of a typhoid idiot, for a disease which was in no way malignant, or, as I might say, therapeutic, he became a man of parts and stands next to the nobility of Europe, not having to work.
Afterward, in Paris, I saw on the street a man who played the trombone by means of a bullet-hole in his trachea, but I do not think it elevated me and spurred me on to nobler endeavor and made a better man of me, as did this simple-hearted young gentleman who made a living by eating publicly through a tin horn, and who actually earned his bread by eating it. I hope that the medical fraternity will make his case a study and try to do better next time. That is the only moral I can think of in connection with this story.
ADVICE TO A SON
XXVII
My Dear Son: I just came here to New York on business, and thought I would write to you a few lines, as I have a little time that is not taken up. I came here on a train from Chicago the other day. Before I started, I got a lower berth in a sleeping car, but when I went to put my sachel in it, before I left Chicago, there were two women and a little girl there, and so I told the porter I would wait until they moved before I put my baggage in the section, for of course I thought they were just sitting there for a minute to rest.
Hours rolled by and they did not move. I kept on sitting in the smoking-room, but they stayed. By and by the porter came and asked me if I had "lower four." I said yes—I paid for it, but I couldn't really say I had it in my possession. He then said that two ladies and a little girl had "upper four," and asked if I would mind swapping with them. I said that I would do so, for I didn't see how a whole family circle could climb up into the upper berth and remain there, and I would rather give them the lower one than spend the night picking up different members of the family and replacing them in the home nest after they had fallen out.