“That sort of thing ought to be counteracted in some way. I’ve not served in a hospital without learning at least that much. But here! Oh, what can we do?”
XI
AMATEUR MENTAL SCIENCE
MANY on board had noticed an invalid who took his airing in a rolling chair. It seemed very natural that he should appear melancholy at times, for he was said to be partially helpless, in fact paralyzed on one side. This was the unfortunate Mr. Onset, whom Mrs. Thorn desired to treat according to the impressionistic methods of the Mental-Mystic University-Sanitorium.
How it came to be rumored that she had obtained his consent and that he was already acting under her direction is really of little moment, for the fact soon became evident,—Mr. Onset himself willingly alluded to it. He explained that after trying many regular physicians he was about to visit certain baths on the Continent when he incidentally met Mrs. Thorn, and was only too glad to avail himself, in passing, of any hopeful aid; especially since “the method required no medicines which might interfere with subsequent treatment at the Spa, and demanded no faith,”—of the latter commodity he had little left to give to any system whatsoever. Mr. Onset was certainly trying conscientiously to be frank with himself.
The next thing known was that Mrs. Thorn had held a good orthodox business-mystic interview properly to diagnose the case; and had given the patient some published articles to read, the wording of which was most dexterously adapted to excite curiosity for—what next; and later on some manuscript letters to be perused when alone, the lights turned low so that no one else could read them by looking over his shoulder, nor find out how he kept them next the fifth-rib-covering of his heart. These latter letters must be made mysterious, simply because they communicated to the patient the mystical line of thought he was to follow while the Commandant of the Thought Center sat in her state-room meditating.
“Oh! I know exactly how it works!” exclaimed Mrs. Cultus.
“How? What?” asked Miss Winchester, laughing.
“Why, lying in your state-room bunk, meditating. I know the whole business, so does the steward. He brings me champagne in one hand and porridge-mush in the other. He reads my thoughts perfectly.”
What the printed matter given to Mr. Onset contained was soon known all over the ship,—an excellent advertisement; what the written pages contained Onset kept to himself, as if the subject-matter was rather too personal for discussion in either the men’s or women’s smoking departments.
Mutual meditations continued, however; mental impressions were presumably radiating, the vibrations presumably acting in a marvellous manner, having been promised to take a straight course direct from the state-room bunk to Mr. Onset’s legs and none other, which certainly was a vast improvement upon the expansion method of wireless telegraphy in communicating thoughts. And this even if the paralysis did remain as evident as before.