This so aroused the jealousy of Mr. Treacherous that he was moved to seek amends for what he considered a stinging and crushing defeat.
“This will I do,” said he, “I will dig a deep ditch across Mr. Wisdom’s path of success, and will shrewdly cover it from view, and as he chances along that way, in the course of his service, he will surely fall into this ditch to his hurt. Then will I glory in his downfall, so that the stings of this, my defeat, will not prick me so sharply.”
So Mr. Treacherous, in the blackness of the night, digged the ditch and covered it ingeniously. Then he waited day after day to hear of Mr. Wisdom’s injury or death, that he might have cause for rejoicing.
Now Mr. Treacherous, since his defeat, was so heavily weighed down with envy and a desire for revenge that he could not sleep soundly, and was wont to walk about the house in a somnambulistic manner.
One night, under the influence of one of these strange spells, he went from the house and walked over the path that led to the ditch.
To his great dismay and double disgrace he waked not until his body struck the bottom of the ditch. He was bruised and some of his bones were broken. Thus he lay there in agony and cried all night long for help.
Ere the morning broke he wished a thousand times that he had not dug the ditch so deep, or rather, had not dug it at all.
A band of searchers found him and, lifting him from his disgrace, they hurried him to this hospital, for he was not minded to humble himself still more by going to another place where Mr. Wisdom and his kind found relief in time of trouble.
It is likely that Mr. Treacherous will never be able to walk again as perfectly as he did before, for it is the reputation of surgeons and physicians of this hospital, in dealing with cases of such extreme folly, that they so manipulate an operation as to render the patient incapable of complete recovery.
Mr. World and his congenial escort moved on from patient to patient, passing many hundreds who had met with accidents on the Broad Highway.