"Sir Timothy was furious. And, calling for Dr. Phipps, he demanded that I apologize. I said I wouldn't. Then Sir Timothy told Phipps that if I didn't he would start an invalids' strike. Phipps got terribly worried and implored me to apologize to this very special patient. I still refused.
"Then a peculiar thing happened. Sir Timothy, who had always so far seemed too weak to walk, got right out of his wheel chair and, waving his ear trumpet wildly, ran around all over the sanitarium, making speeches to the other invalids, saying how shamefully he had been treated and calling on them to strike for their rights.
"And they did strike—and no mistake. That night at dinner they refused to take their medicine—either before or after meals. Dr. Phipps argued with them, prayed them, implored them to behave like proper invalids and carry out their doctors' orders. But they wouldn't listen to him. They ate all the things they had been forbidden to eat, and after dinner those who had been ordered to go for a walk stayed at home, and those who had been ordered to stay quiet went outside and ran up and down the street. They finished the evening by having a pillow fight with their hot-water bottles, when they should have been in bed. The next morning they all packed their own trunks and left. And that was the end of our sanitarium.
"But the most peculiar thing of all was this: I found out afterward that every single one of those patients had got well! Getting out of their wheel chairs and going on strike had done them so much good they stopped being invalids altogether. As a sanitarium doctor, I suppose I was not a success—still, I don't know. Certainly I cured a great many more patients by going out of the sanitarium business than Phipps ever did by going into it."
[CHAPTER III]
GUB-GUB'S STORY
The next night, when they were again seated around the veranda after supper, the Doctor asked: "Now, who's going to tell us a story to-night? Didn't Gub-Gub say he had one for us?"
"Oh, don't let him tell one, Doctor," said Jip. "It's sure to be stupid."
"He isn't old enough to tell a good story," said Dab-Dab. "He hasn't had any experience."