CHAPTER IX
BOB'S LETTER
Irving almost forgot that there had ever been any difficulty between him and Lieut. Tourtelle in contemplation of the novel service he had promised to perform. Perhaps his remembrance of that trouble had been smothered by his curiosity as to the character of this tattooed copy of a "Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs."
The surgeon came at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and got busy at once. However, before administering the ether, he acknowledged an introduction to Private Ellis and promised to "skin the tattoo off the arm" after the amputation and turn it over to its delegated caretaker.
Irving was permitted to be present during the operation. He watched with a good deal of curiosity for a first vision of the cubist art on the patient's arm, and was not at all disappointed. It surely was a clever piece of work, from the point of view of a votary of this sort of art. This was the conclusion of all who saw the operation, and it was the general subject of conversation until the arm was removed.
The surgeon took more interest in the subject now than he had taken at any time previously. This doubtless was due to the special preparations made by the patient for the preservation of the tattooed skin. While the ether was being administered by a nurse, he bared the wounded arm and examined the "copy of quaint art" with interest.
"What does he call this picture?" the "military sawbones" asked as he gazed at the seemingly unmethodical arrangement of distorted "cubes" of all sorts of shapes and angles.
The patient was not yet unconscious, although the nurse was dropping ether into the mask covering his mouth and nose. In a low dreamy voice he answered the question thus:
"It's 'The Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs.'"
The surgeon and the two attending nurses laughed at this answer.