第22章

The old Master was talking about a concert he had been to hear.

--I don't like your chopped music anyway.That woman--she had more sense in her little finger than forty medical societies--Florence Nightingale--says that the music you pour out is good for sick folks, and the music you pound out isn't.Not that exactly, but something like it.I have been to hear some music-pounding.It was a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it.She--gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin.Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt.Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one.Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black and white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on.Dead stop,--so still you could hear your hair growing.Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music.I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood and ivory anvils--don't talk to me, I know the difference between a bullfrog and a woodthrush and Pop! went a small piece of artillery such as is made of a stick of elder and carries a pellet of very moderate consistency.That Boy was in his seat and looking demure enough, but there could be no question that he was the artillery-man who had discharged the missile.The aim was not a bad one, for it took the Master full in the forehead, and had the effect of checking the flow of his eloquence.How the little monkey had learned to time his interruptions I do not know, but I have observed more than once before this, that the popgun would go off just at the moment when some one of the company was getting too energetic or prolix.The Boy isn't old enough to judge for himself when to intervene to change the order of conversation; no, of course he isn't.Somebody must give him a hint.Somebody.--Who is it? I suspect Dr.B.Franklin.He looks too knowing.There is certainly a trick somewhere.Why, a day or two ago I was myself discoursing, with considerable effect, as Ithought, on some of the new aspects of humanity, when I was struck full on the cheek by one of these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that I had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good mouthful of polysyllables.I have watched our young Doctor, however, and have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us, for that popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet.I have suspected a foot under the table as the prompter, but I have been unable to detect the slightest movement or look as if he were making one, on the part of Dr.Benjamin Franklin.I cannot help thinking of the flappers in Swift's Laputa, only they gave one a hint when to speak and another a hint to listen, whereas the popgun says unmistakably, "Shut up!"--I should be sorry to lose my confidence in Dr.B.Franklin, who seems very much devoted to his business, and whom I mean to consult about some small symptoms I have had lately.Perhaps it is coming to a new boarding-house.The young people who come into Paris from the provinces are very apt--so I have been told by one that knows--to have an attack of typhoid fever a few weeks or months after their arrival.I have not been long enough at this table to get well acclimated; perhaps that is it.Boarding-House Fever.Something like horse-ail, very likely,--horses get it, you know, when they are brought to city stables.A little "off my feed," as Hiram Woodruff would say.A queer discoloration about my forehead.Query, a bump?

Cannot remember any.Might have got it against bedpost or something while asleep.Very unpleasant to look so.I wonder how my portrait would look, if anybody should take it now! I hope not quite so badly as one I saw the other day, which I took for the end man of the Ethiopian Serenaders, or some traveller who had been exploring the sources of the Niger, until I read the name at the bottom and found it was a face I knew as well as my own.

I must consult somebody, and it is nothing more than fair to give our young Doctor a chance.Here goes for Dr.Benjamin Franklin.

The young Doctor has a very small office and a very large sign, with a transparency at night big enough for an oyster-shop.These young doctors are particularly strong, as I understand, on what they call diagnosis,--an excellent branch of the healing art, full of satisfaction to the curious practitioner, who likes to give the right Latin name to one's complaint; not quite so satisfactory to the patient, as it is not so very much pleasanter to be bitten by a dog with a collar round his neck telling you that he is called Snap or Teaser, than by a dog without a collar.Sometimes, in fact, one would a little rather not know the exact name of his complaint, as if he does he is pretty sure to look it out in a medical dictionary, and then if he reads, This terrible disease is attended with vast suffering and is inevitably mortal, or any such statement, it is apt to affect him unpleasantly.

I confess to a little shakiness when I knocked at Dr.Benjamin's office door."Come in!" exclaimed Dr.B.F.in tones that sounded ominous and sepulchral.And I went in.

I don't believe the chambers of the Inquisition ever presented a more alarming array of implements for extracting a confession, than our young Doctor's office did of instruments to make nature tell what was the matter with a poor body.