It was Sunday afternoon when I was introduced to the mysteries of this Order. The first person I met in the ante-chamber of the lodge room was an officer called the Outer Spyglass. He ordered two strange Elks to lead me away to another room where I was blindfolded, and a long gown was thrown over me. A large red box, coffin-shaped, with hinges in the middle of the back, and a round hole in the middle of the split lid, so that by opening the box, adjusting a man's neck to the place intended for it, and then closing the box again, the contrivance became the ghastliest sort of a pillory. There were arm openings in the sides of the coffin and the lower portion which had been sawed short was not boarded up, so that the legs might be as free as possible under the circumstances, in walking. Into a wooden overcoat of this kind I was hurriedly thrust, with my head protruding through the hole in the lid. The garment had been built for a man with a longer and thinner neck than mine, and its proportions were so entirely out of keeping with my physique, that while I was choking, and my spinal column threatened to crack any minute, my arms and legs were suffering the severest torture. It was certainly a comfort to know that dead people do not as a general thing wear their ligneous ulsters in this style. When I had the overcoat on, the attendants tied a piece of rope around my neck, a three-pound prayer-book was placed in my right hand, and a euchre deck of cards in my left. Being ready for the sacrifice, one of the Elks was delegated to introduce me to the Order. He took hold of the rope that hung from my neck and hauled me up to the door at which the Grand Microscope stands guard.
"The candidate is ready," said the outer Spy-Glass.
"Let him enter!" was the Microscope's command.
Trembling and helpless, I stood at last, a picture of the utmost ridiculousness and misery, in the presence of the High, Mighty and Magnificent Muck-a-Muck of the Order.
"Quivering candidate!" the Muck-a-Muck exclaimed. "The Elks give you greeting. Every person here assembled stretches out his right hand to you, and the champion Indian-Club Swinger will now give you, in one solid chunk, the congratulations of this entire gathering for the success that promises to attend your attempt to enter our Order. Club-Swinger, congratulate!"
A CANDIDATE IN REGALIA.
The Club-Swinger did so. It was the most startling congratulation I was ever the recipient of. If a train of cars travelling at the rate of 100 miles an hour had run into me I could not have been more surprised. A blow that would have made a pile driver or a quartz hammer feel that it had no more force than the hind leg of a house-fly was planted on the coffin lid right over the first button of my vest, and for three minutes I sped through space. When I landed on my back I felt as if I had run against another such blow speeding in an opposite direction to the first. Every bone in my body was jarred to my finger tips and toe-nails, and the wrench my neck got in the sudden stoppage gave me the impression that my spine had been all at once lengthened out sixteen feet and was still growing.
"Potential Pill-Prescriber!" the High Muck-a-Muck commanded, "examine the candidate's condition and immediately report upon the same! How has he stood the congratulation?"
The Master Physician felt my pulse, muttered to himself "14,—48,—96,—135," and answered "He has stood it well, your Majesty."