Part 38

Mrs. A. "Once I had neurasthenia. For three months I couldn't be moved in bed, and for nine weeks I couldn't turn my head on the pillow."

Mrs. B. } "Mercy!" Mrs. C. } "Oh, Mrs. A.!" Mrs. D. } "Good gracious!"

Mrs. E. "Cerebro-spinal meningitis is worse than neurasthenia. I had it four years ago, and the doctor said he'd never seen a woman live that was as ill as I was. One night my temperature was 167."

Mrs. C. } "Goodness!" Mrs. B. } "That's pretty high!" Mrs. A. } "Are you sure?"

Mrs. E. "Yes, I'm perfectly sure, or at least I think I am; I am seldom wrong on figures."

Mrs. A. "I asked, because I've noticed here that the thermometers register only 110, and I wondered how they measured the temperature when it rose above that point."

Mrs. E. (huffily). "Probably they have extra long thermometers for extreme cases."

Mrs. F. "I am glad that in this sanitarium they take the temperature by tucking the barometer-thing under the arm. My doctor at home always puts it under the tongue, and it is a perfect nuisance. He never gets it well placed but that I think of something I want to say. Then, of course, I have to keep still for three minutes, which seem three hundred, and by that time I have either forgotten it or changed my mind, so there I am!"

Mrs. G. "Just after my youngest child was three years old--"

Mrs. F. (interrupting). "I was going to say, when Mrs. E. spoke about the barometer, that after I was engaged to Mr. F. I had a dreadful attack of brain fever. I was ill in bed three months and they couldn't touch a brush to my hair for nine days."

Mrs. D. } "Horrors!" Mrs. E. } "Dreadful!" Mrs. C. } "Heavens!"

Mrs. G. (bravely). "Just after my youngest child was three--"

Mrs. X. "A man patient was brought on to our floor this morning."

Mrs. S. "Our floor? I wish they would have separate corridors for male patients."

Mrs. X. "This gentleman is an old friend of Dr. Levi's. His wife has been here four weeks, and now he's been taken ill, so they've put him next her on the first floor."

Mrs. S. "I don't care, I hate to have him near us."

Mrs. B. "Why? He's perfectly harmless; he is too ill to move."

Mrs. C. "I'm sure I wish he could! Anything to relieve this hideous dullness. What's the matter with him, I wonder!"

Mrs. D. "I'll ask Miss Oaks when I have my hot fomentations this afternoon; she knows everything and she's as generous as a prince with her knowledge."

Mrs. G. (patiently). "Just after my youngest child was--"

A nurse passes through the grove, bearing a sterilized tray with peptonized preparations on it.

Mrs. Y. (calling her). "Nurse! what's the matter with the new man-patient on our floor?"

Nurse (discreetly). "I don't know, Mrs. Y."

Mrs. X. (as the nurse vanishes). "She does, but she's a stiff thing! Anyway, I heard the attendants whispering about him in the corridor before breakfast. Something--I think it's an organ--is floating about in him."

All. "Floating? What kind of an organ? Horrors!"

Mrs. X. "I couldn't understand exactly. You know people always roar if they have nothing particular to say, but if it is interesting they whisper. I distinctly heard the word 'floating.' I don't know whether it's one of his regular organs, or something he swallowed accidentally."

Mrs. C. (plaintively). "Doctors are never satisfied. If anything floats they want to get it stationary, and if it's stationary they want to cut it loose."

Mrs. G. "Just after my youngest child--"