“I am going to turn on the hose.”
“Wha-a-t?”
“I am going to put this tube down into your stomach. You haven't thrown up much of that laudanum yet.”
She opened her mouth to speak and the doctor inserted one end of the tube and began ramming it down. “Unfasten a button or two here,” he said to her husband and rammed some more. She gagged and gurgled and tried to push his hands away.
“Hold on, we're not down yet—we're only about to the third button.” He began ramming the tube again when she looked up at her husband so imploringly that he said, “Hold on a minute, Doctor, she wants to say something.” The doctor withdrew the tube and waited.
“I'm sure I threw it all up.”
“Oh no,” he said beginning to lift it again.
“I—only—took—two—or three drops.”
“Why the devil didn't you say so at the start?”
“I wish I had. I just told Jim that.”