Hughes-dee-dum and Hughes-dee-dee.
We had hardly finished criticising the impropriety of thus making public the privacy of the sick-chamber when we were startled by a hilarious hullabaloo outside, a strident inharmony of jubilant vocal sounds emulating and imitating the cadence of song. We looked toward the port-hole windows, and there stood Fasting Frank and Heavenly Hughes leaning on their elbows and smiling like cherubs, and singing popular songs at the top of their voices. I blushed at the undignity of it. Doctors! Professors! Fathers! I felt embarrassed. They would not have done it before their families and patients. But I was glad to see them, for I knew that if Doctor Frank had come out of his hole in the wall fair weather and a calm sea had come in earnest. The greeting we gave him was vociferous and as undignified as his behavior. His seasickness had been a premeditated means of increasing his popularity without exerting himself. He had fasted himself into favor. To see him smile like a child, and then howl like a Dervish after a five-days’ fast and close confinement, made us regard him as a suffering hero who no longer suffered, although anyone who couldn’t eat could do the same.
We persuaded him to come in to “coffee,” although he declared that it was against his principles to eat or drink at sea. He wasn’t ready to be tempted yet.
“Tut, tut!” I said, “A cup of coffee and half a roll can not upset you, now that the storm is over.”
“Half a roll, man!” he cried. “Do you know what it is to eat half a roll after a five-days’ fast? Half a roll! Do you know how good it feels to fill up a complete and perfect vacuum in you when you get started? Do you know how good it feels to have your stomach full of solid greasy food after it has been digesting itself for a week?”
“Do I know?” said I. “It is the man who denies himself that knows the joys of indulgence. To habitually suffer from prolonged and painful hunger before each meal, and always stop when you have taken a few mouthfuls and your appetite is at its fiery zenith, is the best training for the mad enjoyment of a full and filling meal that I know of; and I know of it. You are young yet. Wait until you get the gout and you’ll be thankful for half a roll. You’re not rich enough to appreciate half of a dry roll. Your time is coming.”
“Why, you’re just the man I am seeking,” he exclaimed. “I am hunting for a fellow who is as starved as I am and as you look. When we get to New Orleans to-morrow morning, we will have an oyster supper, postponed from to-night; at noon we’ll have an oyster supper for lunch, and before we take the night train to Chicago we will have another oyster supper. Just think of it, if we were not thirty-six hours late we would have the three suppers in us now.”
“Doctor Frank,” I said, “you are going to make yourself sick in earnest, for on land you will not have seasickness to cure and curb you of your overeating. I will eat these three suppers with you and get my stomach full for once—and then swear off forever.”
Here Doctor Morrow interrupted me. “Full for once? Full forever, you mean! You have only been full once since we left Bocas—you have kept at that sherry between meals and claret at meals——”
“Doctor Morrow, I refer to food—food only. On dry land I drink neither sherry nor claret, only water at different temperatures and dilutions. I am glad to say that I am not as you are. I do not intend to harden my arteries and bring on premature arteriosclerosis by overeating. You eat twice as much as you ought to eat every day of your life, except when you are ‘off your food,’ as the result of it, and when nature evens up by forcing you to fast. I intend to curb my appetite. To make use of a paradox, I might say that I am going to starve myself to a good old age.”