"Soap yourself!" exclaimed the latter most harshly now that the bather was out in the room once more. "Soap your chest! Soap your stomach! Soap your arms, damn it! Soap your arms! And don't rub them all day either! Now soap your legs, damn it! Soap your legs! Don't you know how to soap your legs! Don't stand there all day! Soap your legs! Now turn round and soap your back—soap your back! For Christ's sake, soap your back! Do it quick—quick! Now come back under the water again and see if you can get it off. Don't act as though you were cold molasses! Move! Move! Lord, you act as though you had all day—as though you had never taken a bath in your life! I never saw such an old poke. You come up here and expect me to do some things for you, and then you stand around as though you were made of bone! Quick now, move!"
The noble jurist did as demanded—that is, as quickly as he could—only the mental inadequacy and feebleness which he displayed before all the others, of course, was the worst of his cruel treatment here, and in this as in many instances it cut deep. So often it was the shock to one's dignity more than anything else which hurt so, to be called an old poke when one was perhaps a grave and reverent senior, or to be told that one was made of bone when one was a famous doctor or merchant. Once under the water this particular specimen had begun by nervously rubbing his hands and face in order to get the soap off, and when shouted at and abused for that had then turned his attention to one other spot—the back of his left forearm.
Mine host seemed enraged. "Well, well!" he exclaimed irascibly, watching him as might a hawk. "Are you going to spend all day rubbing that one spot? For God's sake, don't you know enough to rub your whole body and get out from under the water? Move! Move! Rub your chest! Rub your belly! Hell, rub your back! Rub your toes and get out!"
When routed from the ludicrous effort of vigorously rubbing one spot he was continually being driven on to some other, as though his body were some vast complex machine which he had never rightly understood before. He was very much flustered of course and seemed wholly unable to grasp how it was done, let alone please his exacting host.
"Come on!" insisted the latter finally and wearily. "Get out from under the water. A lot you know about washing yourself! For a man who has been on the bench for fifteen years you're the dullest person I ever met. If you bathe like that at home, how do you keep clean? Come on out and dry yourself!"
The distinguished victim, drying himself rather ruefully on an exceedingly rough towel, looked a little weary and disgusted. "Such language!" some one afterwards said he said to some one else. "He's not used to dealing with gentlemen, that's plain. The man talks like a blackguard. And to think we pay for such things! Well, well! I'll not stand it, I'm afraid. I've had about enough. It's positively revolting, positively revolting!" But he stayed on, just the same—second thoughts, a good breakfast, his own physical needs. At any rate weeks later he was still there and in much better shape physically if not mentally.
About the second or third day I witnessed another such spectacle, which made me laugh—only not in my host's presence—nay, verily! For into this same chamber had come another distinguished personage, a lawyer or society man, I couldn't tell which, who was washing himself rather leisurely, as was not the prescribed way, when suddenly he was spied by mine host, who was invariably instructing some one in this swift one-minute or less system. Now he eyed the operation narrowly for a few seconds, then came over and exclaimed:
"Wash your toes, can't you? Wash your toes! Can't you wash your toes?"
The skilled gentleman, realizing that he was now living under very different conditions from those to which presumably he was accustomed, reached down and began to rub the tops of his toes but without any desire apparently to widen the operation.
"Here!" called the host, this time much more sharply, "I said wash your toes, not the outside of them! Soap them! Don't you know how to wash your toes yet? You're old enough, God knows! Wash between 'em! Wash under 'em!"