CHAPTER III.
About a week later, Colonel Dabney reported, with a favorable recommendation to the House, from the Committee on Public Property, “An Act restoring a certain amputated limb in the Medical Museum to Major Henry G. Dunwoody.” The Act specified the leg contained in Exhibit 1307, Case 25, as the property to be restored.
When the bill came up for discussion, General Belcher moved to lay it upon the table. Defeated. Then he moved to amend it with a provision that the bone of the leg should be withdrawn and retained in the Museum. Rejected. Then he offered a resolution referring the whole matter to a committee of inquiry, which should be directed to sit for two years, and to take testimony as to what had been the practice of governments in the matter of surrendering legs blown off in battle, from the time of Sennacherib down to the battle of Sedan, including evidence respecting the custom in Persia, Greece, Egypt, Rome, Carthage, Palestine, and modern Europe. After a spirited debate the resolution was lost. But the General was not discouraged. He presented another resolution, that a special committee be directed to inquire whether the person mentioned in this bill was the same Major Dunwoody who, in a fit of alcoholic frenzy, in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, in 1866, treed his aged grandfather one rainy night, and compelled that venerable and rheumatic person to roost upon a lofty branch until morning. Voted down: Yeas 304; Nays 1 (General Belcher).
The bill finally passed to a third reading, and was adopted. When it had received the approval of the Senate and the President, Major Dunwoody drove round to the Museum in high glee with Pandora. He carried in his pocket an empty pillow-case, in which he proposed to take home with him the long-lost fragment of himself. When he found the janitor and presented his credentials, that official was exceedingly polite, and at once led the way to the place where the treasure was kept.
While he was unlocking the case, Pandora could hardly repress her feelings of joy. Leaning upon her lover’s arm, and watching the janitor, she exclaimed,—
“Isn’t it elegant, dear? I can hardly realize that we are really going to get it! Mother will be so glad when George Washington has his other leg on.”
“I wish I had my other one on,” said the Major, pleasantly.
“So do I. It’s too bad! But you can stand it up on the table and look at it now as much as you want to, can’t you, darling?”
The janitor lifted down the huge jar containing the limb, and took it out of the spirits.