NOW SHE IS THIN AND HE IS FAT.
The Wonderful Case of the Mullenhausers, Who Bathed at Coney Island.
The familiar figures of Mr. Germain Mullenhauser and his wife are no longer seen daily braving the surf at Coney Island. They have returned to their Brooklyn residence, where their ablutions are made in the bath tub, and it is very doubtful whether any of the seaside resorts will ever see them again. An estrangement has grown up between them, and they are not happy.
Their story is a strange eventful history. Two months ago Mrs. Mullenhauser could readily turn the scales at 210 pounds, while her husband weighed about the ninety pounds necessary to aggregate 300. They were proud of their proportions, viewed collectively, and neither was jealous of the other. But in an evil hour a friend told Mr. Mullenhauser that he was beginning to look like a scarecrow, and slightingly nicknamed him "Praise-God Bare-Bones," in pointed and scornful recognition of the office of deacon in a Brooklyn church. Mr. Mullenhauser consulted a doctor with the view of gaining flesh.
About the same time an attenuated female acquaintance told Mrs. Mullenhauser that if she grew any fatter she would stand a chance of bursting, and would certainly become dropsical. The stout lady was alarmed, and she too, sought the advice of a medical practitioner relative to the best method of shedding some of her superfluous tissue. Neither husband or wife cared to take counsel with the family physician. They stated their cases to different doctors, and only told each other what they had done when their courses had been mapped out for them.
"Dr. Jones seems to be a very intelligent person," said the lady. "He says that by surf bathing I can reduce my weight at the rate of fourteen pounds a week."
"Why, he must be an imbecile," exclaimed her husband, hotly. "If you go wallowing, like a whale, in the ocean it will add just two pounds a day to your bulk. That is what Dr. Brown promises that sea bathing will do for me, and I am going to begin to try it to-morrow."