“There’s nothing like having a patient toned up previous to an operation,” said the Doctor, musing. “If we can succeed in directing the mind previously, and put him in a proper mood to receive the impression, the work will be well under way before he himself is aware of it. Mrs. Thorn seems quite an adept at preliminary work,—correct, but the preliminaries may reasonably include a counter-irritant. If we can produce premonitory suggestions leading up to an idea, the impression will have a better chance to operate, the idea to cure in its own way.”
“How are you this afternoon, Mr. Onset?” and he took a seat near the invalid.
“Not much encouraged. No doubt Mrs. Thorn is thinking the thing out in her room;—can’t say I feel any worse, and that may be her doings; but really this arm and leg are still so helpless that possibly when I retire to-night I ought to remain in my berth to give her a better chance.”
“Not if I know it,” thought the Doctor; then audibly, “Would you oblige me by attempting to stand up, if only on one foot, and allow me to support your weak side,—just for the effort?”
“It’s no use, my dear sir, not the slightest; I can’t move, for the life of me. I only wish I could.”
“Then let me roll your chair for a turn or two,” and without waiting for a reply he gently moved Onset to a place where both could observe some steam issuing from an aperture.
“What complicated machinery!” remarked the Doctor. “This ship must be a network of pipes, steam here at the side, and also from the top of the funnel, no doubt both connected with the boilers—boilers and live steam, live boilers and steam everywhere! Fortunately, explosions seldom occur.”
“What terrible things accidents must be,” quoth Onset, evidently interested and nervous; “terrible when one is helpless.”
“Sometimes not fatal,” quoth the dismal-cheerful Doctor; “it frequently depends upon one’s own exertions at the critical moment. I was myself once in a collision of passenger trains, our car turned upside down—thrown twenty feet. I lit head-foremost in one of those overhead parcel baskets which had been above my seat and was now below. Fortunately, I was able to pick himself up by the seat of another fellow’s breeches, and scrambled out through a window. If I hadn’t scrambled out that window I should certainly have been burnt alive!”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Onset, “there’s not even a window on this ship downstairs to crawl through. I should never get my leg through a port-hole, and probably be caught head out and legs in. Do you think there’s any danger, Doctor?”