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By IRVIN S. COBB 
 
 Novels 
 
 OLD JUDGE PRIEST 
 
 BACK HOME 
 
 THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM 
 
 Wit and Humor 
 
 "SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS—" 
 EUROPE REVISED 
 ROUGHING IT DE LUXE 
 COBB'S ANATOMY 
 COBB'S BILL OF FARE 
 
 Miscellany 
 
 paths of glory 
 
 George H. Doran Company 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
Old Corner Book 
 Store, Inc. 
 
r-'f-i'-- ttmm 
 
 APPARENTLY THERE WAS NOBODY 
 AT HOME 
 
''Speaking of 
 Operations—' 
 
 By ^y^ 
 
 Irvin S. Cobb 
 
 Author of 
 ••Bach Home** •'Europe Revised^** Etc., Etc. 
 
 Illustrations by TONY SARG 
 
 New York 
 George H. Dor an Company 
 
Copyright, 1915, 
 By The Curtis Publishing Compant 
 
 
 Copyright, 1915, 
 By George H. Doran Comfant 
 
 /7 ^ ^3 
 
' 'speaking of Operations — " 
 
 Respectfully Dedicated 
 To Two Classes: 
 
 THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY BEEN OPERATED ON 
 THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET BEEN OPERATED ON 
 
^'speaking of Operations — " 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Mainly My Own 
 
' ''Speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Apparently There Was Nobody at Home 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 He Regarded It as a Suit of Clothes, But I 
 Knew Better 22 
 
 In Which I Assumed All Responsibility for 
 What Was to Take Place ... 36 
 
 I Wished to Show How Utterly Indifferent 
 I Was - • - - - - ^50 
 
' 'Speaking of Operations— ' ' 
 
 Now that the last belated bill for ser- 
 vices professionally rendered has 
 been properly paid and properly 
 receipted; now that the memory of the 
 event, like the mark of the stitches, has 
 faded out from a vivid red to a becoming 
 pink shade; now that I pass a display of 
 adhesive tape in a drug-store window with- 
 out flinching — I sit me down to write a 
 little piece about a certain matter — a small 
 thing, but mine own — to wit. That Opera- 
 tion. 
 
 For years I have noticed that persons 
 who underwent pruning or remodeling at 
 the hands of a duly qualified surgeon, and 
 survived, like to talk about it afterward. 
 In the event of their not surviving I have 
 no doubt they still liked to talk about it, 
 but in a different locality. Of all the 
 readily available topics for use, whether 
 among friends or among strangers, an op- 
 eration seems to be the handiest and most 
 dependable. It beats the Tariff, or Roose- 
 velt, or Bryan, or when this war is going 
 to end, if ever, if you are a man talking to 
 
 [11] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 other men; and it is more exciting even 
 than the question of how Mrs. Vernon 
 Castle will wear her hair this season, if 
 you are a woman talking to other women. 
 For mixed companies a whale is one of 
 the best and the easiest things to talk about 
 that I know of. In regard to whales and 
 their peculiarities you can make almost any 
 assertion without fear of successful contra- 
 diction. Nobody ever knows any more 
 about them than you do. You are not 
 hampered by facts. If someone mentions 
 the blubber of the whale and you chime 
 in and say it may be noticed for miles on 
 a still day when the large but emotional 
 creature has been moved to tears by some 
 great sorrow coming into its life, every- 
 body is bound to accept the statement. For 
 after all how few among us really know 
 whether a distressed whale sobs aloud or 
 does so under its breath? Who, with any 
 certainty, can tell whether a mother whale 
 hatches her own egg her own self or leaves 
 it on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be 
 incubated by the gentle warmth of the mid- 
 night sun? The possibilities of the propo- 
 [12] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 sition for purposes of informal debate, pro 
 and con, are apparent at a glance. 
 
 The weather, of course, helps out amaz- 
 ingly when you are meeting people for 
 the first time, because there is nearly al- 
 ways more or less weather going on some- 
 where and practically everybody has ideas 
 about it. The human breakfast is also a 
 wonderfully good topic to start up during 
 one of those lulls. Try it yourself the next 
 time the conversation seems to drag. Just 
 speak up in an offhand kind of way and 
 say that you never care much about break- 
 fast — a slice of toast and a cup of weak tea 
 start you off properly for doing a hard day's 
 work. You will be surprised to note how 
 things liven up and how eagerly all present 
 join in. The lady on your left feels that 
 you should know she always takes two 
 lumps of sugar and nearly half cream, be- 
 cause she simply cannot abide hot milk, no 
 matter what the doctors say. The gentle- 
 man on your right will be moved to con- 
 fess he likes his eggs boiled for exactly 
 three minutes, no more and no less. Buck- 
 wheat cakes and sausage find a champion 
 
 [13] 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 and oatmeal rarely lacks a warm defender. 
 
 But after all, when all is said and done, 
 the king of all topics is operations. Sooner 
 or later, wherever two or more are gath- 
 ered together it is reasonably certain that 
 somebody will bring up an operation. 
 
 Until I passed through the experience of 
 being operated on myself, I never really 
 realized what a precious conversational 
 boon the subject is, and how great a part 
 it plays in our intercourse with our fellow 
 beings on this planet. To the teller it is 
 enormously interesting, for he is not only 
 the hero of the tale but the rest of the cast 
 and the stage setting as well — the whole 
 show, as they say; and if the listener has 
 had a similar experience — and who is there 
 among us in these days that has not taken 
 a nap 'neath the shade of the old ether 
 cone? — it acquires a doubled value. 
 
 "Speaking of operations " you say, 
 
 just like that, even though nobody present 
 has spoken of them; and then you are off, 
 with your new acquaintance sitting on the 
 edge of his chair, or hers as the case may 
 be and so frequently is, with hands clutched 
 [14] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 in polite but painful restraint, gills work- 
 ing up and down with impatience, eyes 
 brightened with desire, tongue hung in the 
 middle, waiting for you to pause to catch 
 your breath, so that he or she may break 
 in with a few personal recollections along 
 the same line. From a mere conversation 
 it resolves itself into a symptom symposium, 
 and a perfectly splendid time is had by 
 all. 
 
 If an operation is such a good thing to 
 talk about, why isn't it a good thing to write 
 about, too? That is what I wish to know. 
 Besides, I need the money. Verily, one al- 
 ways needs the money when one has but 
 recently escaped from the ministering 
 clutches of the modern hospital. There- 
 fore I write. 
 
 It all dates back to the fair, bright morn- 
 ing when I went to call on a prominent 
 practitioner here in New York, whom I 
 shall denominate as Doctor X. I had a 
 pain. I had had it for days. It was not 
 a dependable, locatable pain, such as a 
 tummyache or a toothache is, which you 
 can put your hand on; but an indefinite, 
 
 [15] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 unsettled, undecided kind of pain, which 
 went wandering about from place to place 
 inside of me like a strange ghost lost in 
 Cudjo's Cave. I never knew until then 
 what the personal sensations of a haunted 
 house are. If only the measly thing could 
 have made up its mind to settle down some- 
 where and start light housekeeping I think 
 I should have been better satisfied. I never 
 had such an uneasy tenant. Alongside of 
 it a woman with the moving fever would 
 be comparatively a fixed and stationary 
 object. 
 
 Having always, therefore, enjoyed per- 
 fectly riotoi^ and absolutely unbridled 
 health, never feeling weak and distressed 
 unless dinner happened to be ten or fifteen 
 minutes late, I was green regarding phy- 
 sicians and the ways of physicians. But I 
 knew Doctor X slightly, having met him 
 last summer in one of his hours of ease in 
 the grand stand at a ball game, when he 
 was expressing a desire to cut the umpire's 
 throat from ear to ear, free of charge ; and 
 I remembered his name, and remembered, 
 too, that he had impressed me at the Xxmt 
 [16] 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 as being a person of character and decision 
 and scholarly attainments. 
 
 He wore whiskers. Somehow in my 
 mind whiskers are ever associated with 
 medical skill. I presume this is a heritage 
 of my youth, though I believe others labor 
 under the same impression. As I look back 
 it seems to me that in childhood's days all 
 the doctors in our town wore whiskers. 
 
 I recall one old doctor down there in 
 Kentucky who was practically lurking in 
 ambush all the time. All he needed was 
 a few decoys out in front of him and a 
 pump gun to be a duck blind. He carried 
 his calomel about with him in a fruit jar, 
 and when there was a cutting job he 
 stropped his scalpel on his bootleg. 
 
 You see, in those primitive times germs 
 had not been invented yet, and so he did 
 not have to take any steps to avoid them. 
 Now we know that loose, luxuriant whisk- 
 ers are unsanitary, because they make such 
 fine winter quarters for germs; so, though 
 the doctors still wear whiskers, they do not 
 wear them wild and waving. In the pro- 
 fession bosky whiskers are taboo; they must 
 
 [17] 
 
^^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 be laadscaped. And since it is a recognized 
 fact that germs abhor orderliness and 
 straight lines they now go elsewhere to re- 
 side, and the doctor may still retain his 
 traditional aspect and yet be practically 
 germproof. Doctor X was trimmed in ac- 
 cordance with the ethics of the newer 
 school. He had trellis whiskers. So I 
 went to see him at his offices in a fashion- 
 able district, on an expensive side street. 
 
 Before reaching him I passed through 
 the hands of a maid and a nurse, each of 
 whom spoke to me in a low, sorrowful tone 
 of voice, which seemed to indicate that 
 there was very little hope. 
 
 I reached an inner room where Doctor 
 X was. He looked me over, while I de- 
 scribed for him as best I could what seemed 
 to be the matter with me, and asked me a 
 number of intimate questions touching on 
 the lives, works, characters and peculiari- 
 ties of my ancestors; after which he made 
 me stand up in front of him and take my 
 coat off, and he punched me hither and 
 yon with his forefiiiger. He also knocked 
 repeatedly on my breastbone with his 
 [18] 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 knuckles, and each time, on doing this, 
 would apply his ear to my chest and listen 
 intently for a spell, afterward shaking his 
 head in a disappointed way. Apparently 
 there was nobody at home. For quite a 
 time he kept on knocking, but without get- 
 ting any response. 
 
 He then took my temperature and fifteen 
 dollars, and said it was an interesting case 
 — not unusual exactly, but interesting — and 
 that it called for an operation. 
 
 From the way my heart and other organs 
 jumped inside of me at that statement I 
 knew at once that, no matter what he may 
 have thought, the premises were not unoc- 
 cupied. Naturally I inquired how soon 
 he meant to operate. Personally I trusted 
 there was no hurry about it. I was per- 
 fectly willing to wait for several years, if 
 necessary. He smiled at my ignorance. 
 
 "I never operate," he said; "operating is 
 entirely out of my line. I am a diagnosti- 
 cian." 
 
 He was, too — I give him full credit for 
 that. He was a good, keen, close diagnosti- 
 cian. How did he know I had only fifteen 
 [19] 
 
'' speaking of Operations — -" 
 
 dollars on me? You did not have to tell 
 this man what you had, or how much. He 
 knew without being told. 
 
 I asked whether he was acquainted with 
 Doctor Y — Y being a person whom I had 
 met casually at a club to which I belong. 
 Oh, yes, he said, he knew Doctor Y. Y 
 was a clever man, X said — very, very clever; 
 but Y specialized in the eyes, the ears, the 
 nose and the throat. I gathered from what 
 Doctor X said that any time Doctor Y 
 ventured below the thorax he was out of 
 bounds and liable to be penalized; and that 
 if by any chance he strayed down as far 
 as the lungs he would call for help and 
 back out as rapidly as possible. 
 
 This was news to me. It would appear 
 that these up-to-date practitioners just go 
 ahead and divide you up and partition you 
 out among themselves without saying any- 
 thing to you about it. Your torso belongs 
 to one man and your legs are the exclusive 
 property of his brother practitioner down 
 on the next block, and so on. You may 
 belong to as many as- half a dozen special- 
 ists, most of whom, very possibly, are total 
 [20] 
 
^^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 strangers to you, and yet never know a thing 
 about it yourself. 
 
 It has rather the air of trespass — nay, 
 more than that, it bears some of the aspects 
 of unlawful entry — but I suppose it is legal. 
 Certainly, judging by what I am able to 
 learn, the system is being carried on gener- 
 ally. So it must be ethical. 
 
 Anything doctors do in a mass is ethical. 
 Almost anything they do singly and on in- 
 dividual responsibility is unethical. Being 
 ethical among doctors is practically the 
 same thing as being a Democrat in Texas 
 or a Presbyterian in Scotland. 
 
 "Y will never do for you," said Doctor 
 X, when I had rallied somewhat from the 
 shock of these disclosures. "I would sug- 
 gest that you go to Doctor Z, at such-and- 
 such an address. You are exactly in Z's 
 line. I'll let him know that you are com- 
 ing and when, and I'll send him down my 
 diagnosis." 
 
 So that same afternoon, the appointment 
 having been made by telephone, I went, full 
 of quavery emotions, to Doctor Z's place. 
 As soon as I was inside his outer hallway 
 
 [211 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 I realized that I was nearing the presence 
 of one highly distinguished in his profes- 
 sion. 
 
 A pussy-footed male attendant, in a livery 
 that made him look like a cross between 
 a headwaiter and an undertaker's assistant, 
 escorted me through an anteroom into a 
 reception-room, where a considerable num- 
 ber of well-dressed men and women were 
 sitting about in strained attitudes, pretend- 
 ing to read magazines while they waited 
 their turns, but in reality furtively watch- 
 ing one another. 
 
 I sat down in a convenient chair, adher- 
 ing fast to my hat and my umbrella. They 
 were the only friends I had there and I 
 was determined not to lose them without 
 a struggle. On the wall were many colored 
 charts showing various portions of the hu- 
 man anatomy and what ailed them. Directly 
 in front of me was a very thrilling illus- 
 tration, evidently copied from an oil paint- 
 ing, of a liver in a bad state of repair. I 
 said to myself that if I had a liver like 
 that one I should keep it hidden from the 
 public eye — I would never permit it to sit 
 
 [22] 
 

 
 HE REGARDED IT AS A SUIT OF CLOTHES 
 BUT I KNEW BETTER 
 
6i 
 
 Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 for its portrait. Still, there is no account- 
 ing for tastes. I know a man who got his 
 spleen back from the doctors and now keeps 
 it in a bottle of alcohol on the what-not in 
 the parlor, as one of his most treasured 
 possessions, and sometimes shows it to visi- 
 tors. He, however, is of a very saving dis- 
 position. 
 
 Presently a lady secretary, who sat be- 
 hind a roll-top desk in a corner of the room, 
 lifted a forefinger and silently beckoned 
 me to her side. I moved over and sat down 
 by her; she took down my name and my 
 age and my weight and my height, and a 
 number of other interesting facts that will 
 come in very handy should anyone ever be 
 moved to write a complete history of my 
 early life. In common with Doctor X she 
 shared one attribute — she manifested a 
 deep curiosity regarding my forefathers — 
 wanted to know all about them. I felt that 
 this was carrying the thing too far. I felt 
 like saying to her: 
 
 "Miss or madam, so far as I know there 
 is nothing the matter with my ancestors of 
 the second and third generations back, ex- 
 [23] 
 
''Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 cept that they are dead. I am not here 
 to seek medical assistance for a grandparent 
 who succumbed to disappointment that 
 time when Samuel J. Tilden got counted 
 out, or for a great-grandparent who entered 
 into Eternal Rest very unexpectedly and in 
 a manner entirely uncalled for as a result 
 of being an innocent bystander in one of 
 those feuds that were so popular in my 
 native state immediately following the 
 Mexican War. Leave my ancestors alone. 
 There is no need of your shaking my family 
 tree in the belief that a few overripe pa- 
 tients will fall out. I alone — I, me, myself 
 — am the present candidate!" 
 
 However, I refrained from making this 
 protest audibly. I judged she was only go- 
 ing according to the ritual; and as she had 
 a printed card, with blanks in it ready to 
 be filled out with details regarding the re- 
 mote members of the family connection, I 
 humored her along. 
 
 When I could not remember something 
 
 she wished to know concerning an ancestor 
 
 I supplied her with thrilling details culled 
 
 from the field of fancy. When the card 
 
 [24] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 - V " 
 
 was entirely filled up she sent me back to 
 my old place to wait I waited and waited, 
 breeding fresh ailments all the time. I 
 had started out with one symptom ; now if 
 I had one I had a million and a half. I 
 could feel goose flesh sprouting out all over 
 me. If I had been taller I might have 
 had more, but not otherwise. Such is the 
 power of the human imagination when the 
 surroundings are favorable to its develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Time passed; to me it appeared that 
 nearly all the time there was passed and 
 that we were getting along toward the 
 shank-end of the Christian era mighty fast. 
 I was afraid my turn would come next 
 and afraid it would not. Perhaps you know 
 this sensation. You get it at the dentist's, 
 and when you are on the list of after-dinner 
 speakers at a large banquet, and when you 
 are waiting for the father of the Only Girl 
 in the World to make up his mind whether 
 he is willing to try to endure you as a son- 
 in-law. 
 
 Then some more time passed. 
 
 One by one my companions, obeying a 
 
 125] 
 
'^speaking of Operations — " 
 
 command, passed out through the door at 
 the back, vanishing out of my life forever. 
 None of them returned. I was vaguely 
 wondering whether Doctor Z buried his 
 dead on the premises or had them removed 
 by a secret passageway in the rear, when 
 a young woman in a nurse's costume tapped 
 me on the shoulder from behind. 
 
 I jumped. She hid a compassionate 
 smile with her hand and told me that the 
 doctor would see me now. 
 
 As I rose to follow her — still clinging 
 with the drowning man's grip of despera- 
 tion to my hat and my umbrella — I was 
 astonished to note by a glance at the cal- 
 endar on the wall that this was still the 
 present date. I thought it would be Thurs- 
 day of next week at the very least. 
 
 Doctor Z also wore whiskers, carefully 
 pointed up by an expert hedge trimmer. 
 He sat at his desk, surrounded by freewill 
 offerings from grateful patients and by 
 glass cases containing other things he had 
 taken away from them when they were not 
 in a condition to object. I had expected, 
 after all the preliminary ceremonies and 
 
 [26] 
 
^^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 delays, that we should have a long seance 
 together. Not so; not at all. The modem 
 expert in surgery charges as much for re- 
 membering your name between visits as the 
 family doctor used to expect for staying 
 up all night with you, but he daes not 
 waste any time when you are in his pres- 
 ence. 
 
 I was about to find that out. And a little 
 later on I was to find out a lot of other 
 things; in fact, that whole week was of 
 immense educational value to me. 
 
 I presume it was because he stood so 
 high in his profession, and was almost con- 
 stantly engaged in going into the best so- 
 ciety that Doctor Z did not appear to be 
 the least bit excited over my having picked 
 him out to look into me. In the most per- 
 functory manner he shook the hand that 
 has shaken the hands of Jess Willard, 
 George M. Cohan and Henry Ford, and 
 bade me be seated in a chair which was 
 drawn up in a strong light, where he might 
 gaze directly at me as we conversed and 
 so get the full values of the composition. 
 But if I was a treat for him to look at he 
 concealed his feelings very effectually. 
 
 [27] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations—'^'* 
 
 He certainly had his emotions under 
 splendid control. But then, of course, you 
 must remember that he probably had 
 traveled about extensively and was used to 
 sight-seeing. 
 
 From this point on everything passed off 
 in a most businesslike manner. He reached 
 into a filing cabinet and took out an ex- 
 hibit, which I recognized as the same one 
 his secretary had filled out in the early 
 part of the century. So I was already in 
 the card-index class. Then briefly he 
 looked over the manifest that Doctor X 
 had sent him. It may not have been a 
 manifest — it may have been an invoice or 
 a bill of lading. Anyhow, I was in the as- 
 signee's hands. I could only hope it would 
 not eventually become necessary to call in 
 a receiver. Then he spoke: 
 
 "Yes, yes-yes," he said; "yes-yes-yes! 
 Operation required. Small matter — hum, 
 hum! Let's see — this is Tuesday? Quite 
 so. Do it Friday! Friday at" — he glanced 
 toward a scribbled pad of engagement 
 dates at his elbow — "Friday at seven A. M. 
 [28] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 No; make it seven-fifteen. Have impor- 
 tant tumor case at seven. St. Germicide's 
 Hospital. You know the place? — up on 
 Umpty-umph Street. Go' day! Miss Who- 
 ziz, call next visitor." 
 
 And before I realized that practically 
 the whole affair had been settled I was 
 outside the consultation-room in a small 
 private hall, and the secretary was telling 
 me further details would be conveyed to 
 me by mail. I went home in a dazed state. 
 For the first time I was beginning to learn 
 something about an industry in which here- 
 tofore I had never been interested. Espe- 
 cially was I struck by the difference now re- 
 vealed to me in the preliminary stages of 
 the surgeons' business as compared with 
 their fellow experts in the allied cutting 
 trades — tailors, for instance, not to mention 
 barbers. Every barber, you know, used to 
 be a surgeon, only he spelled it chirurgeon. 
 Since then the two professions have drifted 
 far apart. Even a half-witted barber — the 
 kind who always has the first chair as you 
 come into the shop — can easily spend ten 
 minutes of your time thinking of things he 
 
 [29] 
 
''speaking of Operations — '' 
 
 thinks you should have and mentioning 
 them to you one by one, whereas any good, 
 live surgeon knows what you have almost 
 instantly. 
 
 As for the tailor — consider how weari- 
 some are his methods when you parallel 
 them alongside the tremendous advances 
 in this direction made by the surgeon — 
 how cumbersome and old-fashioned and 
 tedious ! Why, an experienced surgeon has 
 you all apart in half the time the tailor 
 takes up in deciding whether the vest shall 
 fasten with five buttons or six. Our own 
 domestic tailors are bad enough in this re- 
 gard and the Old World tailors are even 
 worse. 
 
 I remember a German tailor in Aix-la- 
 Chapelle in the fall of 19 14 who under- 
 took to build for me a suit suitable for 
 visiting the battle lines informally. He 
 was the most literary tailor I ever met any- 
 where. He would drape the material over 
 my person and then take a piece of chalk 
 and write quite a nice long piece on me. 
 Then he would rub it out and write it all 
 over again, but more fully. He kept this 
 [30] 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 up at intervals of every other day until he 
 had writer's cramp. After that he used 
 pins. He would pin the seams together, 
 uttering little soothing, clucking sounds in 
 German whenever a pin went through the 
 goods and into me. The German cluck is 
 not so soothing as the cluck of the English- 
 speaking peoples, I find. 
 
 At the end of two long and trying weeks, 
 which wore both of us down noticeably, he 
 had the job done. It was not an unquali- 
 fied success. He regarded is as a suit of 
 clothes, but I knew better; it was a set of 
 slip covers, and if only I had been a two- 
 seated runabout it would have proved a 
 perfect fit, I am sure; but I am a single- 
 seated design and it did not answer. I 
 wore it to the war because I had nothing 
 else to wear that would stamp me as a 
 regular war correspondent, except, of 
 course, my wrist watch; but I shall not 
 wear it to another war. War is terrible 
 enough already; and, besides, I have parted 
 with it. On my way home through Hol- 
 land I gave that suit to a couple of poor 
 Belgian refugees, and I presume they are 
 still wearing it. 
 
 [311 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 So far as I have been able to observe, 
 the surgeons and the tailors of these times 
 share but one common instinct: If you go 
 to a new surgeon or to a new tailor he 
 is morally certain, after looking you over, 
 that the last surgeon you had, or the last 
 tailor, did not do your cutting properly. 
 There, however, is where the resemblance 
 ends. The tailor, as I remarked in effect 
 just now, wants an hour at least in which 
 to decide how he may best cover up and 
 disguise the irregularities of the human 
 form; in much less time than that the 
 surgeon has completely altered the form it- 
 self. 
 
 With the surgeon it is very much as it 
 is with those learned men who write those 
 large, impressive works of reference which 
 should be permanently in every library, 
 and which we are forever buying from an 
 agent because we are so passionately ad- 
 dicted to payments. If the thing he seeks 
 does not appear in the contents proper he 
 knows exactly where to look for it. "See 
 appendix," says the historian to you in a 
 footnote. "See appendix," says the surgeon 
 [321 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — '' 
 
 to himself, the while humming a cheery 
 refrain. And so he does. 
 
 Well, I went home. This was Tuesday 
 and the operation was not to be performed 
 until the coming Friday. By Wednesday 
 I had calmed down considerably. By 
 Thursday morning I was practically nor- 
 mal again as regards my nerves. You will 
 understand that I was still in a state of 
 blissful ignorance concerning the actual 
 methods of the surgical profession as ex- 
 emplified by its leading exponents of to- 
 day. The knowledge I have touched on 
 in the pages immediately preceding was to 
 come to me later. 
 
 Likewise Doctor Z's manner had been 
 deceiving. It could not be that he meant 
 to carve me to any really noticeable extent 
 — his attitude had been entirely too casual. 
 At our house carving is a very serious mat- 
 ter. Any time I take the head of the table 
 and start in to carve it is fitting to remove 
 the women and children to a place of safety, 
 and onlookers should get under the table. 
 When we first began housekeeping and 
 gave our first small dinner-party we had 
 
'^ speaking of Operations'—'^'^ 
 
 2l brace of ducks cooked in honor of the 
 company, and I, as host, undertook to carve 
 them. I never knew until then that a duck 
 vi^as built like a watch — that his works were 
 inclosed in a burglarproof case. Without 
 the use of dynamite the Red Leary-O'Brien 
 gang could not have broken into those 
 ducks. I thought so then and I think so 
 yet. Years have passed since then, but I 
 may state that even now, when there are 
 guests for dinner, we do not have ducks. 
 Unless somebody else is going to carve, we 
 have liver. 
 
 I mention this fact in passing because 
 it shows that I had learned to revere carv- 
 ing as one of the higher arts, and one not 
 to be approached except in a spirit of due 
 appreciation of the magnitude of the under- 
 taking, and after proper consideration and 
 thought and reflection, and all that sort of 
 thing. 
 
 If this were true as regards a mere duck, 
 why not all the more so as regards the carv- 
 ing of a person of whom I am so very fond 
 as I am of myself? Thus I reasoned. And 
 finally, had not Doctor Z spoken of the 
 [34] 
 
'^speaking of Operations — " 
 
 coming operation as a small matter. Well 
 then? 
 
 Thursday at noon I received from Doc- 
 tor Z's secretary a note stating that ar- 
 rangements had been made for my admis- 
 sion into St. Germicide that same evening 
 and that I was to spend the night there. 
 This hardly seemed necessary. Still, the 
 tone of the note appeared to indicate 
 that the hospital authorities particularly 
 wished to have me for an overnight guest; 
 and as I reflected that probably the poor 
 things had few enough bright spots in their 
 busy lives, I decided I would humor them 
 along and gladden the occasion with my 
 presence from dinner-time on. 
 
 About eight o'clock I strolled in very 
 jauntily. In my mind I had the whole 
 programme mapped out. I would stay at 
 the hospital for, say, two days following the 
 operation — or, at most, three. Then I must 
 be up and away. I had a good deal of 
 work to do and a number of people to see 
 on important business, and I could not 
 really afford to waste more than a week- 
 end on the staff of St. Germicide's. After 
 [35] 
 
6i 
 
 Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 Monday they must look to their own de- 
 vices for social entertainment. That was 
 my idea. Now when I look back on it I 
 laugh, but it is a hollow laugh and there 
 is no real merriment in it. 
 
 Indeed, almost from the moment of my 
 entrance little things began to come up that 
 were calculated to have a depressing effect 
 on one's spirits. Downstairs a serious-look- 
 ing lady met me and entered in a book a 
 number of salient facts regarding my per- 
 sonality which the previous investigators 
 had somehow overlooked. There is a lot 
 of bookkeeping about an operation. This 
 detail attended to, a young man, dressed 
 in white garments and wearing an expres- 
 sion that stamped him as one who had suf- 
 fered a recent deep bereavement came and 
 relieved me of my hand bag and escorted 
 me upstairs. 
 
 As we passed through the upper corri- 
 dors I had my first introduction to the 
 hospital smell, which is a smell com- 
 pounded of iodoform, ether, gruel, and 
 fomething boiling. All hospitals have it, 
 [36] 
 
'■ 
 
 f;-': 
 
 V. 
 
 l\ ■ ■ 
 
 
 
 
 5,1^ *^|C".^\ 
 
 |-"^ 
 
 ^-ii^. 
 
 IN WHICH I ASSUMED ALL RESPONSIBILITY 
 FOR WHAT WAS TO TAKE PLACE 
 
^^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 I understand. In time you get used to it, 
 but you never really care for it. 
 
 The young man led me into a small room 
 tastefully decorated with four walls, a floor, 
 a ceiling, a window sill and a window, a 
 door and a doorsill, and a bed and a chair. 
 He told me to go to bed. I did not want 
 to go to bed — it was not my regular bed- 
 time — but he made a point of it, and I 
 judged it was according to regulations; so 
 I undressed and put on my night clothes 
 and crawled in. He left me, taking my 
 other clothes and my shoes with him, but 
 I was not allowed to get lonely. 
 
 A little later a ward surgeon appeared, 
 to put a few inquiries of a pointed and per- 
 sonal nature. He particularly desired to 
 know what my trouble was. I explained 
 to him that I couldn't tell him — he would 
 have to see Doctor X or Doctor Z; they 
 probably knew, but were keeping it a secret 
 between themselves. 
 
 The answer apparently satisfied him, be- 
 cause immediately after that he made me 
 sign a paper in which I assumed all respon- 
 sibility for what was to take place the next 
 morning. 
 
 [37] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 This did not seem exactly fair. As I 
 pointed out to him, it was the surgeon's 
 affair, not mine; and if the surgeon made 
 a mistake the joke would be on him and 
 not on me, because in that case I would not 
 be here anyhow. But I signed, as re- 
 quested, on the dotted line, and he de- 
 parted. 
 
 After that, at intervals, the chief house 
 surgeon dropped in, without knocking, and 
 the head nurse came, and an interne or so, 
 and a ward nurse, and the special nurse 
 who was to have direct charge of me. It 
 dawned on me that I was not having any 
 more privacy in that hospital than a gold- 
 fish. 
 
 About eleven o'clock an orderly came, 
 and, without consulting my wishes in the 
 matter, he undressed me until I could have 
 passed almost anywhere for September 
 Morn's father, and gave me a clean shave, 
 twice over, on one of my most prominent 
 plane surfaces. I must confess I enjoyed 
 that part of it. So far as I am able to 
 recall, it was the only shave I have ever 
 had where the operator did not spray me 
 [381 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — ^'' 
 
 with cheap perfumery afterward and then 
 try to sell me a bottle of hair tonic. 
 
 Having shaved me, the young man did 
 me up amidships in a neat cloth parcel, 
 took his kit under his arm and went away. 
 
 It occurred to me that, considering the 
 trivial nature of the case, a good deal of 
 fuss was being made over me by persons 
 who could have no personal concern in the 
 matter whatsoever. This thought recurred 
 to me frequently as I lay there, all tied in 
 a bundle like a week's washing. I did not 
 feel quite so uppish as I had felt. Why 
 was everybody picking on me? 
 
 ■Anon I slept, but dreamed fitfully. I 
 dreamed that a whole flock of surgeons 
 came to my bedside and charted me out in 
 sections, like one of those diagram pictures 
 you see of a beef in the Handy Compen- 
 dium of Universal Knowledge, showing 
 the various cuts and the butcher's pet name 
 for each cut. Each man took his favorite 
 joint and carried it away, and when they 
 were all gone I was merely a recent site, 
 full of reverberating echoes and nothing 
 else. 
 
 [39] 
 
^^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 I have had happier dreams in my time; 
 this was not the kind of dream I should 
 have selected had the choice been left to 
 me. 
 
 When I woke the young sun was shining 
 in at the window, and an orderly — not the 
 orderly who had shaved me, but another 
 one — was there in my room and my nurse 
 was waiting outside the door. The orderly 
 dressed me in a quaint suit of pyjamas cut 
 on the half shell and buttoning stylishly in 
 the back, princesse mode. Then he rolled 
 in a flat litter on wheels and stretched me 
 on it, and covered me up with a white table- 
 cloth, just as though I had been cold Sun- 
 day-night supper, and we started for the 
 operating-room at the top of the building; 
 but before we started I lit a large black 
 cigar, as Gen. U. S. Grant used to do when 
 he went into battle. I wished by this to 
 show how indifferent I was. Maybe he 
 fooled somebody, but I do not believe I 
 possess the same powers of simulation that 
 Grant had. He must have been a very re- 
 markable man — Grant must. 
 
 The orderly and the nurse trundled me 
 [40] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 out into the hall and loaded me into an 
 elevator, which was to carry us up to the 
 top of the hospital. Several other nurses 
 were already in the elevator. As we came 
 aboard one of them remarked that it was a 
 fine day. A fine day for what? She did 
 not finish the sentence. 
 
 Everybody wore a serious look. Inside 
 of myself I felt pretty serious too — serious 
 enough for ten or twelve. I had meant to 
 fling ojBf several very bright, spontaneous 
 quips on the way to the table. I thought 
 them out in advance, but now, somehow, 
 none of them seemed appropriate. In- 
 stinctively, as it were, I felt that humor 
 was out of place here. 
 
 I never knew an elevator to progress 
 from the third floor of a building to the 
 ninth with such celerity as this one on 
 which we were traveling progressed. Per- 
 sonally I was in no mood for haste. If 
 there was anyone else in all that great 
 hospital who was in a particular hurry to 
 be operated on I was perfectly willing to 
 wait. But alas, no ! The mechanism of the 
 elevator was in perfect order — entirely too 
 
 [41] 
 
^^ speaking of Operations — '' 
 
 perfect. No accident of any character what- 
 soever befell us en route, no dropping back 
 into the basement with a low, grateful 
 thud ; no hitch ; no delay of any kind. We 
 were certainly out of luck that trip. The 
 demon of a joyrider who operated the ac- 
 cursed device jerked a lever and up we 
 soared at a distressingly high rate of speed. 
 If I could have had my way about that 
 youth he would have been arrested for 
 speeding. 
 
 Now we were there! They rolled me 
 into a large room, all white, with a rounded 
 ceiling like the inside of an t'g^. Right 
 away I knew what the feelings of a poor, 
 lonely little yolk are when the spoon begins 
 to chip the shell. If I had not been so busy 
 feeling sorry for myself I think I might 
 have developed quite an active sympathy 
 for yolks. 
 
 My impression had been that this was to 
 be in the nature of a private affair, with- 
 out invitations. I was astonished to note 
 that quite a crowd. had assembled for the 
 opening exercises. From his attire and 
 general deportment I judged that Doctor 
 [42] 
 
' ^speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 Z was going to be the master of the revels, 
 he being attired appropriately in a white 
 domino, with rubber gloves and a fancy cap 
 of crash toweling. There were present, 
 also, my diagnostic friend, Doctor X, like- 
 wise in fancy-dress costume, and a surgeon 
 I had never met. From what I could 
 gather he was going over the course behind 
 Doctor Z to replace the divots. 
 
 And there was an interne in the back- 
 ground, playing caddy, as it were, and a 
 head nurse, who was going to keep the 
 score, and two other nurses, who were go- 
 ing to help her keep it. I only hoped that 
 they would show no partiality, but be as 
 fair to me as they were to Doctor Z, and 
 that he would go round in par. 
 
 So they placed me right where my eyes 
 might rest on a large wall cabinet full of 
 very shiny-looking tools ; and they took my 
 cigar away from me and folded my hands 
 on the wide bowknot of my sash. Then 
 they put a cloth dingus over my face and 
 a voice of authority told me to breathe. 
 That advice, however, was superfluous and 
 might just as well have been omitted, for 
 
 [43] 
 
''Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 such was my purpose anyhow. Ever since 
 I can recall anything at all, breathing has 
 been a regular habit with me. So I 
 breathed. And, at that, a bottle of highly 
 charged sarsaparilla exploded somewhere 
 in the immediate vicinity and most of its 
 contents went up my nose. 
 
 I started to tell them that somebody had 
 been fooling with their ether and adulterat- 
 ing it, and that if they thought they could 
 send me off to sleep with soda pop they 
 were making the mistake of their lives, be- 
 cause it just naturally could not be done; 
 but for some reason or other I decided to 
 put off speaking about the matter for a 
 few minutes. I breathed again — again — 
 agai 
 
 I was going away from there. I was in 
 a large gas balloon, soaring up into the 
 clouds. How pleasant! . . . No, by Jove I 
 I was not in a balloon — I myself was the 
 balloon, which was not quite so pleasant. 
 Besides, Doctor Z was going along as a 
 passenger; and as we traveled up and up 
 he kept jabbing me in the midriff with the 
 ferrule of a large umbrella which he had 
 
 [441 
 
^'speaking of Operations — " 
 
 brought along with him in case of rain. 
 He jabbed me harder and harder. I re- 
 monstrated with him. I told him I was a bit 
 tender in that locality and the ferrule of 
 his umbrella was sharp. He would not 
 listen. He kept on jabbing me. . . . 
 
 Something broke! We started back down 
 to earth. We fell faster and faster. We 
 fell nine miles, and after that I began to 
 get used to it. Then I saw the earth be- 
 neath and it was rising up to meet us. 
 
 A town was below — a town that grew 
 larger and larger as we neared it. I could 
 make out the bonded indebtedness, and the 
 Carnegie Library, and the moving-picture 
 palaces, and the new dancing parlor, and 
 other principal points of interest. 
 
 At the rate we were falling we were cer- 
 tainly going to make an awful splatter in 
 that town when we hit. I was sorry for 
 the street-cleaning department. 
 
 We fell another half mile or so. A spire 
 was sticking up into the sky directly be- 
 neath us, like a spear, to impale us. By a 
 supreme effort I twisted out of the way of 
 that spire, only to strike squarely on top of 
 
 [45] 
 
''Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 the roof of a greenhouse back of the par- 
 sonage, next door. We crashed through it 
 with a perfectly terrific clatter of breaking 
 glass and landed in a bed of white flowers, 
 all soft and downy, like feathers. 
 
 And then Doctor Z stood up and combed 
 the debris out of his whiskers and remarked 
 that, taking it by and large, it had been one 
 of the pleasantest little outings he had en- 
 joyed in the entire course of his practice. 
 He said that as a patient I was fair, but 
 as a balloon I was immense. He asked me 
 whether I had seen anything of his um- 
 brella and began looking round for it. I 
 tried to help him look, but I was too tired 
 to exert myself much. I told him I be- 
 lieved I would take a little nap. 
 
 I opened a dizzy eye part way. So this 
 was heaven — this white expanse that swung 
 and swam before my languid gaze? No, 
 it could not be — it did not smell like heaven. 
 It smelled like a hospital. It was a hospi- 
 tal. It was my hospital. My nurse was 
 bending over me and I caught a faint whiff 
 of the starch in the front of her crisp blue 
 blouse. She was two-headed for the mo- 
 146] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 ment, but that was a mere detail. She set- 
 tled a pillow under my head and told me 
 to lie quiet. 
 
 I meant to lie quiet; I did not have to 
 be told. I wanted to lie quiet and hurt. 
 I was hurty from head to toe and back 
 again, and crosswise and eater-cornered. 
 I hurt diagonally and lengthwise and on 
 the bias. I had a taste in my mouth like 
 a bird-and-animal store. And empty! It 
 seemed to me those doctors had not left 
 anything inside of me except the acoustics. 
 Well, there was a mite of consolation there. 
 If the overhauling had been as thorough 
 as I had reason to believe it was from my 
 present sensations, I need never fear catch- 
 ing anything again so long as I lived, ex- 
 cept possibly dandruff. 
 
 I waved the nurse away. I craved soli- 
 tude. I desired only to lie there in that 
 bed and hurt — which I did. 
 
 I had said beforehand I meant to stay in 
 St. Germicide's for two or three days only. 
 It is when I look back on that resolution 
 I emit the hollow laugh elsewhere referred 
 to. For exactly four weeks I was flat on 
 [47] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 my back. I know now how excessively 
 wearied a man can gQt of his own back, 
 how tired of it, how bored with it! And 
 after that another two weeks elapsed before 
 my legs became the same dependable pair 
 of legs I had known in the past. 
 
 I did not want to eat at first, and when 
 I did begin to want to they would not let 
 me. If I felt sort of peckish they let me 
 suck a little glass thermometer, but there 
 is not much nourishment really in thermo- 
 meters. And for entertainment, to wile the 
 dragging hours away, I could count the 
 cracks in the ceiling and read my tempera- 
 ture chart, which was a good deal like Red 
 Ames' batting average for the past season 
 — ranging from ninety-nine to one hundred 
 and four. 
 
 Also, through daily conversations with 
 my nurse and with the surgeons who 
 dropped in from time to time to have a 
 look at me, I learned, as I lay there, a great 
 deal about the medical profession — that is, 
 a great deal for a layman — and what I 
 learned filled me with an abiding admira- 
 tion for it, both as a science and as a busi- 
 [48] 
 
''^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 ness. This surely is one profession which 
 ever keeps its face to the front. Burying 
 its past mistakes and forgetting them as 
 speedily as possible, it pushes straight for- 
 ward into fresh fields and fresh patients, 
 always hopeful of what the future may 
 bring in the way of newly discovered and 
 highly expensive ailments. As we look 
 backward upon the centuries we are as- 
 tonished by its advancement. I did a good 
 deal of looking backwards upon the cen- 
 turies during my sojourn at St. Germi- 
 cide's. 
 
 Take the Middle Ages now — the period 
 when a barber and a surgeon were one and 
 the same. If a man made a failure as a 
 barber he turned his talents to surgery. 
 Surgeons in those times were a husky breed. 
 I judge they worked by the day instead of 
 by piecework; anyhow the records show 
 they were very fond of experiments, where 
 somebody else furnished the raw material. 
 
 When there came a resounding knock at 
 
 the tradesman's entrance of the moated 
 
 grange, the lord of the manor, looking over 
 
 the portcullis and seeing a lusty wight 
 
 [49] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 standing down below, in a leather apron, 
 widi his sleeves rolled up and a kit of 
 soldering tools under his arm, didn't know 
 until he made inquiry whether the gentle 
 stranger had come to mend the drain or 
 remove the cook's leg. 
 
 A little later along, when gunpowder 
 had come into general use as a humanizing 
 factor of civilization, surgeons treated a 
 gunshot wound by pouring boiling lard 
 into it, which I would say was calculated 
 to take the victim's mind off his wound and 
 give him something else to think about — • 
 for the time being, anyhow. I assume the 
 notion of applying a mustard plaster out- 
 side one's stomach when one has a pain in- 
 side one's stomach is based on the same 
 principle. 
 
 However, one doesn't have to go clear 
 back to medieval times to note the radical 
 differences in the plan of treating human 
 ailments. A great many persons who are 
 still living can remember when the doctors 
 were not nearly so numerous as they are 
 now. I, for one, v^ould be the last to re- 
 verse the sentence and say that because the 
 [50 J 
 
I WISHED TO SHOW 
 
 HOW UTTERLY INDIFFERENT I WAS 
 
'' speaking of Operations — -" 
 
 doctors were not nearly so numerous then 
 as they are now, those persons are still liv- 
 ing so numerously. 
 
 In the spring of the year, when the sap 
 flowed and the birds mated, the sturdy 
 farmer felt that he was due to have some- 
 thing the matter with him, too. So he 
 would ride into the country-seat and get 
 an almanac. Doubtless the reader, if 
 country raised, has seen copies of this popu- 
 lar work. On the outside cover, which was 
 dark blue in color, there was a picture of 
 a person whose stomach was sliced four 
 ways, like a twenty-cent pie, and then 
 folded back neatly, thus exposing his en- 
 tire interior arrangements to the gaze of 
 the casual observer. However, this party, 
 judging by his picture, did not appear to 
 be suffering. He did not even seem to fear 
 that he might catch cold from standing 
 there in his own draught. He was gazing 
 off into space in an absent-minded kind of 
 way, apparently not aware that anything 
 was wrong with him; and on all sides he 
 was surrounded by interesting exhibits, such 
 as a crab, and a scorpion, and a goat, and a 
 
 [51] 
 
'^speaking of Operations — " 
 
 chap with a bow and arrow — and one thing 
 and another. 
 
 Such was the main design of the cover, 
 while the contents were made up of rec- 
 ognized and standard varieties in the line 
 of jokes and the line of diseases which al- 
 ternated, with first a favorite joke and then 
 a favorite disease. The author who wrote 
 the descriptions of the diseases was one of 
 the most convincing writers that ever lived 
 anywhere. As a realist he had no superiors 
 among those using our language as a 
 vehicle for the expression of thought. He 
 was a wonder. If a person wasn't particu- 
 lar about what ailed him he could read 
 any page at random and have one specific 
 disease. Or he could read the whole book 
 through and have them all, in their most 
 advanced stages. Then the only thing that 
 could save him was a large dollar bottle. 
 
 Again, in attacks of the breakbone ague 
 or malaria it was customary to call in a 
 local practitioner, generally an elderly lady 
 of the neighborhood, who had none of these 
 latter-day prejudices regarding the use of 
 tobacco by the gentler sex. One whom I 
 [521 
 
'^speaking of Operations — " 
 
 distantly recall, among childhood's happy 
 memories, carried this liberal-mindedness 
 to a point where she not only dipped snuff 
 and smoked a cob pipe, but sometimes 
 chewed a little natural leaf. This lady, on 
 being called in, would brew up a large 
 caldron of medicinal roots and barks and 
 sprouts and things; and then she would 
 deluge the interior of the sufferer with a 
 large gourdful of this pleasing mixture at 
 regular intervals. It was efficacious, too. 
 The inundated person either got well or 
 else he drowned from the inside. Rocking 
 the patient was almost as dangerous a pas- 
 time as rocking the boat. This also helps 
 to explain, I think, why so many of our 
 forebears had floating kidneys. There was 
 nothing else for a kidney to do. 
 
 By the time I attained to long trousers, 
 people in our town mainly had outgrown 
 the unlicensed expert and were depending 
 more and more upon the old-fashioned 
 family doctor — the one with the whisker- 
 jungle — ^who drove about in a gig, accom- 
 panied by a haunting aroma of iodoform 
 and carrying his calomel with him in bulk. 
 [53] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 He probably owned a secret calomel 
 mine of his own. He must have; other- 
 wise he could never have afforded to be 
 so generous with it. He also had other 
 medicines with him, all of them being 
 selected on the principle that unless a drug 
 tasted like the very dickens it couldn't pos- 
 sibly do you any good. At all hours of 
 the day and night he was to be seen going 
 to and fro, distributing nuggets from his 
 private lode. He went to bed with his 
 trousers and his hat on, I think, and there 
 was a general belief that his old mare slept 
 between the shafts of the gig, with the 
 bridle shoved up on her forehead. 
 
 It has been only a few years since the 
 oldtime general practitioner was every- 
 where. Just look round and see now how 
 the system has changed! If your liver be- 
 gins to misconduct itself the first thought 
 of the modern operator is to cut it out and 
 hide it some place where you can't find 
 it. The oldtlmer would have bombarded 
 it with a large brunette pill about the size 
 and color of a damson plum. Or he might 
 put you on a diet of molasses seasoned to 
 
 r54i 
 
^'Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 taste with blue mass and quinine and other 
 attractive condiments. Likewise, in the 
 spring of the year he frequently anointed 
 the young of the species with a mixture of 
 mutton suet and asafetida. This treatment 
 had an effect that was distinctly depressing 
 upon the growing boy. It militated against 
 his popularity. It forced him to seek his 
 pleasures outdoors, and a good distance 
 outdoors at that. 
 
 It was very hard for a boy, however 
 naturally attractive he might be, to retain 
 his popularity at the fireside circle when 
 coated with mutton suet and asafetida and 
 then taken into a warm room. He attracted 
 attention which he did not court and which 
 was distasteful to him. Keeping quiet did 
 not seem to help him any. Even if they 
 had been blindfolded others would still 
 have felt his presence. A civit-cat suffers 
 from the same drawbacks in a social way, 
 but the advantage to the civit-cat is that 
 as a general thing it associates only with 
 other civit-cats. 
 
 Except in the country the old-time, catch- 
 as-catch-can general practitioner appears to 
 
 [55] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 be dying out. In the city one finds him oc- 
 casionally, playing a limit game in an office 
 on a back street — two dollars to come in, 
 five to call; but the tendency of the day is 
 toward specialists. Hence the expert who 
 treats you for just one particular things 
 With a pain in your chest, say, you go to 
 a chest specialist. So long as he can keep 
 the trouble confined to your chest, all well 
 and good. If it slips down or slides up 
 lie tries to coax it back to the reservation. 
 If it refuses to do so, he bids it an affection- 
 ate adieu, makes a dotted mark on you to 
 show where he left off, collects his bill and 
 regretfully turns you over to a stomach 
 specialist or a throat specialist, depending 
 on the direction in which the trouble was 
 headed when last seen. 
 
 Or, perhaps the specialist to whom you 
 take your custom is an advocate of an im- 
 mediate operation for such cases as yours 
 and all others. I may be unduly sensitive 
 on account of having recently emerged 
 from the surgeon's hands, but it strikes me 
 now that there are an awful lot of doctors 
 who take one brief glance at a person who 
 is complaining, and say to themselves that 
 156] 
 
'^ speaking of Operations — " 
 
 here is something that ought to be looked 
 into right away — and immediately open a 
 bag and start picking out the proper utensils. 
 You go into a doctor's office and tell him 
 you do not feel the best in the world — and 
 he gives you a look and excuses himself, 
 and steps into the next room and begins 
 greasing a saw. 
 
 Mind you, in these casual observations 
 as compiled by me while bedfast and here 
 given utterance, I am not seeking to dis- 
 parage possibly the noblest of professions. 
 Lately I have owed much to it. I am 
 strictly on the doctor's side. He is with us 
 when we come into the world and with us 
 when we go out of it, oftentimes lending a 
 helping hand on both occasions. Anyway, 
 our sympathies should especially go out to 
 the medical profession at this particular 
 time when the anti-vivisectionists are railing 
 so loudly against the doctors. The anti- 
 vivisection crusade has enlisted widely dif- 
 ferent classes in the community, including 
 many lovers of our dumb-animal pets — 
 and aren't some of them the dumbest things 
 you ever saw! — especially chow dogs and 
 love birds. 
 
 [571 
 
'' speaking of Operations- — " 
 
 I will admit there is something to be said 
 on both sides of the argument. This dis- 
 secting of live subjects may have been 
 carried to extremes on occasions. When I 
 read in the medical journals that the emin- 
 ent Doctor Somebody succeeded in trans- 
 ferring the interior department of a peli- 
 can to a pointer pup, and vice versa, with 
 such success that the pup drowned while 
 diving for minnows, and the pelican went 
 out in the back yard and barked himself 
 to death baying at the moon, I am in- 
 terested naturally; but, possibly because of 
 my ignorance, I fail to see wherein the 
 treatment of infantile paralysis has been 
 materially advanced. On the other hand, 
 I would rather the kind and gentle Belgian 
 hare should be offered up as a sacrifice 
 upon the operating table and leave behind 
 him a large family of little Belgian heirs 
 and heiresses — dependent upon the charity 
 of a cruel world — than that I should have 
 something painful which can be avoided 
 through making him a martyr. I would 
 rather any white rabbit on earth should 
 have the Asiatic cholera twice than that 
 I jhould have it just once. These are my 
 
 [58] 
 
' ' speaking of Operations — ' ' 
 
 sincere convictions, and I will not attempt 
 to disguise them. 
 
 Thanks too, to medical science we know 
 about germs and serums and diets and all 
 that. Our less fortunate ancestors didn't 
 know about them. They were befogged in 
 ignorance. As recently as the generation 
 immediately preceding ours people were 
 unacquainted with the simplest rules of 
 hygiene. They didn't care whether the 
 housefly wiped his feet before he came into 
 the house or not. The gentleman with the 
 drooping, cream-separator mustache was 
 at perfect liberty to use the common drink- 
 \ ing cup on the railroad train. The ap- 
 pendix lurked in its snug retreat, undis- 
 turbed by the prying fingers of curiosity. 
 The fever-bearing skeeter buzzed and 
 flitted, stinging where he pleased. The 
 germ theory was unfathomed. Suitable 
 food for an invalid was anything the in- 
 valid could afford to buy. Fresh air, and 
 more especially fresh night air, was re^^ 
 garded as dangerous, and people hermet- 
 ically sealed themselves in before retiring. 
 Not daily as at present was the world glad- 
 dened by the tidings that science had un- 
 
 159 1 
 
'' speaking of Operations — " 
 
 earthed some new and particularly unpleas- 
 ant disease. It never occurred to a mother 
 that she should sterilize the slipper before 
 spanking her offspring. Babies were not 
 reared antiseptically, but just so. Nobody 
 was aware of microbes. 
 
 In short, our sires and our grandsires 
 abode in the midst of perils. They were 
 surrounded on all sides by things that are 
 immediately fatal to the human system. 
 Not a single one of them had a right to 
 pass his second birthday. In the light of 
 what we know, we realize that by now this 
 world should be but a barren waste, dotted 
 at frequent intervals with large graveyards 
 and populated only by a few dispossessed 
 and hungry bacteria, hanging over the 
 cemetery fence singing: Driven From 
 Home! 
 
 In the conditions generally prevalent up 
 to twenty-five years ago, most of us never 
 had any license, really, to be born at all. 
 Yet look how many of us are now here. 
 In this age of research I hesitate to attempt 
 to account for it, except on the entirely un- 
 scientific theory that what you don't know 
 doesn't hurt you. Doubtless a physician 
 [60] 
 
'' speaking of Operations — " 
 
 could give you a better explanation, but his 
 would cost you more than mine has. 
 
 But we digress. Let us get back to our 
 main subject, which is myself. I shall 
 never forget my first real meal in that hos- 
 pital. There was quite a good deal of talk 
 about it beforehand. My nurse kept tell- 
 ing me that on the next day the doctor had 
 promised I might hare something to eat. 
 I could hardly wait. I had visions of a 
 tenderloin steak smothered in fried onions, 
 and some French-fried potatoes, and a tall 
 table-limit stack of wheat cakes, and a few 
 other incidental comfits and kickshaws. I 
 could hardly wait for that meal. 
 
 The next day came and she brought it 
 to me, and I partook thereof. It was the 
 white of an ^gg. For dessert I licked a 
 stamp; but this I did clandestinely and 
 by stealth, without saying anything about 
 it to her. I was not supposed to have any 
 sweets. 
 
 On the occasion of the next feast the 
 diet was varied. I had a sip of one of those 
 fermented milk products. You probably 
 know the sort of thing I mean. Even be- 
 fore you've swallowed it, it tastes as though 
 
 [61] 
 
'' speaking of Operations — " 
 
 it had already disagreed with you. The 
 nurse said this food was predigested but 
 did not tell me by whom. Nor did I ask 
 her. I started to, but thought better of 
 it. Sometimes one is all the happier fof 
 not knowing too much. 
 
 A little later on, seeing that I had not 
 suffered an attack of indigestion from this 
 debauch, they gave me junket. In the dic- 
 tionary I have looked up the definitions 
 of junket. I quote: 
 
 Junket, v. 1. 1. To entertain by feasting; 
 regale. II. i. To give or take part in an 
 entertainment or excursion; feast in com- 
 pany; picnic; revel. 
 
 Junket, n. A merry feast or excursion; 
 picnic. 
 
 When the author of a dictionary tries 
 to be frivolous he only succeeds in making 
 himself appear foolish. 
 
 I know not how it may be in the world 
 at large, but in a hospital, junket is a cus- 
 tard that by some subtle process has been 
 denuded of those ingredients which make 
 a custard fascinating and exciting. It tastes 
 as though the eggs, which form its under- 
 lying basis, had been laid in a fit of pique 
 [62] 
 
'' speaking of Operations — " 
 
 by a hen that was severely upset at the time. 
 
 Hereafter when the junket is passed 
 round somebody else may have my share. 
 I'll stick to the mince pie a la mode. 
 
 And the first cigar of my convalescence 
 ■ — ah, that, too, abides as a vivid memory! 
 Dropping in one morning to replace the 
 wrappings Doctor Z said I might smoke 
 in moderation. So the nurse brought me 
 a cigar, and I lit it and took one deep 
 puff; but only one. I laid it aside. I said 
 to the nurse: 
 
 "A mistake has been made here. I do 
 not want a cooking cigar, you understand. 
 I desire a cigar for personal use. This one 
 is full of herbs and simples, I think. It 
 suggests a New England boiled dinner, and 
 not a very good New England boiled din- 
 ner at that. Let us try again." 
 
 She brought another cigar. It was not 
 satisfactory either Then she showed me 
 the box — an orthodox box containing cigars 
 of a recognized and previously dependable 
 brand. I could only conclude that a root- 
 and-herb doctor had bought an interest in 
 the business and was introducing his own 
 pet notions into the formula. 
 
 [63] 
 
''Speaking of Operations — " 
 
 But came a day — as the fancy writers say 
 when they wish to convey the impression 
 that a day has come, but hate to do it in 
 a commonplace manner — came a day when 
 my cigar tasted as a cigar should taste and 
 food had the proper relish to it; and my 
 appetite came back again and found the 
 old home place not so greatly changed 
 after all. 
 
 And then shortly thereafter came another 
 day, when I, all replete with expensive 
 stitches, might drape the customary habili- 
 ments of civilization about my attenuated 
 frame and go forth to mingle with my fel- 
 low beings. I have been mingling pretty 
 steadily ever since, for now I have some- 
 thing to talk about — a topic good for any 
 company; congenial, an absorbing topic. 
 
 I can spot a brother member a block 
 away. I hasten up to him and give him 
 the grand hailing sign of the order. He 
 opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him 
 to it. 
 
 "Speaking of operations ^" I say. 
 
 [And then I'm off. 
 
 Believe me, it's the life! 
 
 [64] 
 
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