The attack came without warning. One moment Ollie was lying there unhappily, suffering hunger pangs, and the next moment somebody had punched him in the stomach. The shock made him start and then look down. But there was nobody near him. The doctors had left him alone while they looked up articles in textbooks and argued with each other.
He felt another punch, and then another and another. He yelled in fright and pain.
After five minutes, a nurse looked in and asked casually, "Did you call?"
"My stomach!" groaned Ollie. "Somebody's hittin' me in my stomach!"
"It's a tummyache," she said with a cheerful smile. "It should teach you not to wolf your food."
Then she caught a glimpse of his stomach, from which Ollie, in his agony, had cast off the sheet, and she gulped. It was swollen like a watermelon—or, rather, like a watermelon with great warts. Lumps stuck out all over it.
She rushed out, calling, "Doctor Manson! Doctor Manson!"
When she returned with two doctors, Ollie was in such acute misery that he didn't even notice them. One doctor said, "Well, I'll be damned!" and began tapping the swollen stomach.
The other doctor demanded, "When did this happen?"
"Right now, I guess," replied the nurse. "Just a few minutes ago his stomach was as flat as the way it was when you saw it."