During the night we ran into protected waters near the coast of Honduras and the doctor’s patients all felt better, and Friday morning were able, by lying very still on their steamer chairs, to be on deck. He asked them how they felt and they said they felt quite well, and thanked him for it. The ship had stopped its pitching and had taken a slow-rolling gait, a sort of sea-canter, that was quite easy for those who liked it.
The weather overhead was sunshiny and alluring, and all of the men but Doctor Brower and Doctor Frank were out. Suddenly, to our delight, Doctor Brower appeared among us and was greeted with appropriate applause. The doctor is a large man with one of those cheery natures whose hearty laugh spreads its contagion wherever it is heard. He is of sober Dutch descent, but so many American grafts have been incorporated into the original stock that the only Dutch qualities left are a large waist, great industry, and an unusual capacity for work and words. Physically considered he is the equivalent of a whole roomful of Dutchmen, and has tenfold the vivacity of the whole Netherlands on his tongue. He has that easily aroused, nervous organism that belongs to our own country, and which is undoubtedly accentuated in him by having spent his whole adult life studying and treating neurasthenics and lunatics. It is a well-recognized fact that people who live with or associate intimately with the insane have more or less mental aberration induced in them by a sort of hypnotic suggestion, an aberration which neurologists recognize in others, but not in themselves.
He greeted us without the signs of joyful emotion that characterized his usual manner, and hurried across the deck to the pile of steamer chairs, jerked off the topmost one, which was Doctor Frank’s, and unfolded it hurriedly. Just as he had it straightened out and placed, the boat gave a lurch to one side and sent him staggering across the deck. When he struck the life-boat he clung to it, straightened up and stared at the chair defiantly, as if to say, “Damn!” But he had the gentlemanly instinct that did not allow him to forget himself in the presence of ladies. He tried to assume his usual cheerful but dignified expression, but his feature only expressed pathos and pathology. A rolling ship gathers no stoics, as the saying is. We would have led him to the chair, but we knew that he had the pride born of the habitual exercise of power and authority, and would resent help as long as he was able to be on his feet. Moreover, most of us felt that we ourselves might suddenly lose our dignity, etc., if we did not lie still. Finally the spirit of the soldier gained the upper hand. He made a successful charge upon the chair and dropped on it with such force that its rickety joints cracked and its slender legs began to spread. While on his feet he had displayed some remnants of his great energy, but his head was no sooner down than his energy centered itself in the stomach. He jumped up into a sitting posture as if started by an electric shock, and before he could get on his feet the deck was flooded with White Rock water. He then sank back in the steamer chair, causing more spreading and creaking of its frail legs and exclaimed, “I declare! That White Rock tastes better out of the bottle than out of the stomach.”
At this, the lady who sat next to him could not resist an impulse to imitate him, although she had otherwise good manners. But she had no reserve of White Rock to call upon; she could produce nothing but a set of teeth, which went overboard. Discouraged with the result of so much conspicuous and exhaustive effort, she allowed herself to be helped off the scene by her gagging husband. Several of us suppressed a few sympathetic flourishes and hid our eyes like ostriches, and were safe.
Pretty soon Doctor Senn, who had experience in about everything but in being seasick, began to think that perhaps Doctor Brower needed some helpful advice, and said in his kind, deliberate way: “Brower, you have been drinking again. I have always told you that so much water disagreed with you. The deck was made to be kept clean, but not with White Rock. If you would drink something stronger, it would teach you to drink less in quantity, and thus incline you toward moderation.”
Doctor Brower raised himself to make a vigorous response when the spreading legs of the rickety chair gave way, and man and chair collapsed, the doctor sick and the chair dead.
“Come, Brower, let me help you to your stateroom. Bed is the best place when you are sick.”
While saying this Doctor Senn went to him to help him, but he began to feel better and would not be helped.
“No, thank you, Senn; I am all right now. I never felt better. I’ll try another chair.”
“Ah, I thought that you were not really sick. It was all a joke after all. As long as a man can continue producing more than he consumes he must be all right. Have a cigar.”