"Kill me!" Sam shouted. "What d'ye mean, kill me? I eat some Rinderbrust for my lunch yet; and that's all what ails me. I ain't got no more Bright's Disease as you got it."
"If you think that lying is going to help you, you're mistaken," Babette replied calmly. "To a man in your condition gedämpftes Kalbfleisch is poison."
"I ain't lying to you," Sam insisted. "I am eating too much lunch, I am telling you."
"And you're not going to eat too much dinner!" Babette said as she tiptoed from the room.
Thus Sam drank a glass of buttermilk and ate some dry toast for his supper; and, in consequence, he slept so soundly that he did not waken until Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer entered his room at eight o'clock the following morning. Under the bullying frown of his daughter Sam submitted to a physical examination that lasted for more than an hour; and when Doctor Eichendorfer departed he left behind him four varieties of tablets and a general interdiction against eating solid food, getting up, going downtown, or any of the other dozen things that Sam insisted upon doing.
It was only under the combined persuasion of Max, Babette, and Lester that he consented to stay in bed that forenoon; and when lunchtime arrived he was so weakened by a twenty-four-hour fast and Doctor Eichendorfer's tablets, that he was glad to remain undisturbed for the remainder of the day.
At length, after one bedridden week, accompanied by a liquid diet and more tablets, Sam was allowed to sit up in a chair and to partake of a slice of chicken.
"Well, popper, how do you feel to-day?" asked Max, who had just arrived from the office.
"I feel pretty sick, Max," Sam replied; "but I guess I could get downtown to-morrow, all right."
Babette sat nearby and nodded her head slowly.