Miss White was a little diffident about exposing the fact that the president had said a swear word, but she finally admitted that he remarked:
"I don't care a d——n about finding the bullet but I do hope they'll fix it up so I need not continue to suffer."
The doctors washed the wound area, painted it with iodine, itself a somewhat painful operation, and proceeded to the dressing.
One of the doctors told Col. Roosevelt that Miss White was a suffragist, and that after his kind treatment he ought to be converted. Miss White said the Big Bull Moose was a suffragist and that was one of the big planks of his party and the colonel laughed and said of course he believed in it.
When the party left for Chicago Dr. R. G. Sayle took with his antisepticized surgeon's gloves, surgical dressing and instruments to be used in case of hemorrhage before Chicago was reached.
Not a souvenir of the ex-President's visit remains in the hospital. His shirt was turned over to the police, and a blood-soaked handkerchief which was bound upon the wound, and which was picked up by one of the nurses, was found to have an "S" in the corner, so it was evident that it either did not belong to the ex-President or he had not always owned it, and this was discarded.
The Mercy Hospital nurses were appreciative of Col. Roosevelt.
"He was the best patient I ever had," said Miss Welter, and the sentiment was endorsed by Miss Fitzgerald.
"He was consideration itself. He never had a word of complaint all the time he was at the hospital, and his chief worry seemed to be that we were not comfortable. We had expected to find him 'strenuous' and possibly disagreeable. On the contrary, we found him most docile. He chafed at being kept in bed, but he tried not to show it, and he never was ill-humored or peevish, as many patients in a similar position are."