Seeing us approach with all the apparatus for “making a night of it,” Pat imagined he was going to be put on a more stimulating course of treatment, and his eyes fairly glistened, and his leg was, if possible, drawn still more closely to his body as he took a mental view of his situation; no work, good lodgings, pleasant medicine, liberal diet, and at last, to cap the climax of his earthly felicity, the pure “Crame of the Valley.”
Well, Pat, my boy, how do you rise to-night?”.
“Faith, an' good troth, young docthurs, like Inglan's tare for the ould counthry's misry, I don't rise at all at all—not aven the laste bit; here is me stretched on me back like a nagur, unable to work for my praties, or a wee drap of the crathur, ochone! ochone!”
“Don't you improve any? Can't you walk a bit?”
“Shure, not a bit! How am I to travel when my fut is bent up to where a rich man's boot shakes hands with a puir man? ochone! Its 'frade I am I'll be always here, instid of warkin', an' drinkin', an' votin', an' bein' a fray-man, as me muther was to the fore.”
“I hope not, Pat,” said I, desirous of bringing the conversation to a close, “old D———— has directed me to cup you, and that is what has brought us up.”
“Cup me, is it? Well it's reddy I am—shure an' have been for the long time; make it strong with the whiskey; bless the ould man, I tould him the other day, when he was prachin' the could wather, that a good strong cup would cure me as well!”
Great was Pat's consternation when he found that the tumblers, from which arose the odoriferous scent of the alcohol, were to go on him, instead of their contents going in him. He would have demurred, but he saw the uselessness of the attempt, and therefore assented to the operation with rather a lank visage, I must confess.
I soon repented the wager, and wished myself well rid of my bargain; the rascal had perfect command of the muscles of his brawny chest, and no sooner would a cup be exhausted and applied, than with a sudden contraction of the muscles, he would send it, with a simmering noise, rolling to the distant side of the bed. I tried every way, in the usual manner, to make them retain their hold, but the task was fruitless; occasionally one would flatter me it was going to remain, but scarcely could I give my attention to the other side, when off it would come. The half hour wanted but ten minutes of being out, and the cups were still unapplied. I became almost desperate, and called up two long-nailed Kentucky nurses, and made them hitch their fingers in the folds of the integuments on either side, so as to hold the muscles tense until the cups could adhere. This plan bid fair to answer, and the jeerings, remarks, and shouts of laughter, at my apparent discomfiture, which had greeted me in that unusual place for mirth, somewhat subsided; one minute of the allotted time was left, and but one cup remained unapplied. Up to this time, the steward of the hospital had been waiting upon me, pouring the alcohol, with which to exhaust the cup, from a tumbler nearly full into an empty glass, and then turning it out, he would hand it to me, and by the time it was applied have another ready; but one remained, as I have said, and I was waiting for it, when Charley, who had a finale for his test which none of us anticipated, suddenly substituted for the empty glass, the one nearly full of pure alcohol; suspecting no such trick, and there being no time for critical examination, I stuck the candle to it, and essayed as the blaze burst out, to apply it high up on the Irishman's breast. With a rushing, roaring sound, out burst the flaming liquid all over the poor devil's body.
With a loud scream, amidst the roars of involuntary laughter which attended his advent, Patrick gave a spring nearly to the ceiling, and dashing like fragile reeds the sturdy men who were holding him to the floor, amidst the cries of fire! fire! curses in Irish, loud and long, and the crash of the shivering tumblers, as he shed himself of them, took refuge in a large bathing-tub full of water, which, fortunately for him, stood in the ward.