“Respectfully,
“—— ——,
“Assistant Surgeon in charge.”
Concise, but not Clear.
These questions, if even he had any right to ask them (which he had not), were simply absurd. With hundreds of men requiring different drinks many times each day, ordered by numerous surgeons, prepared to suit different stages of disease and palate, no hour bringing the same orders, how could any kind of a correct statement be made, even if I was willing to make it? But there was a great deal of amusement in the idea of letting him suppose he had alarmed me. Perhaps, as the day was very wet, and the wards rather empty, we might enact a small comedy; so I sat down and answered in full, respectfully, feeling very charitably that he was welcome to all the information he could extract from the five closely-written sheets of foolscap I despatched him.
A Storm Brewing.
In this document, polite, officially formal and as officially obscure, I thought I had succeeded in showing my correspondent that his questions could not be answered satisfactorily, but that I was much alarmed at his asking them. That I did not succeed in regard to his first inquiry was proved by the following, which came after an hour’s delay.
“Hospital, April 3rd, 1864.
“Chief Matron:—Is respectfully called upon to state what amount of whiskey has been given to each patient when amount has not been stated or expressed by surgeon, or assistant surgeon, upon the rolls, but instead ‘whiskey three times a day,’ and shown upon the rolls which I send you.
“Respectfully,