Part 15 (1/2)
The noble jurist did as demanded--that is, as quickly as he could--only the mental inadequacy and feebleness which he displayed before all the others, of course, was the worst of his cruel treatment here, and in this as in many instances it cut deep So often it was the shock to one's dignityelse which hurt so, to be called an old poke when one was perhaps a grave and reverent senior, or to be told that one was made of bone when one was a famous doctor or merchant
Once under the water this particular speci his hands and face in order to get the soap off, and when shouted at and abused for that had then turned his attention to one other spot--the back of his left foreared ”Well, well!” he exclai to spend all day rubbing that one spot? For God's sake, don't you know enough to rub your whole body and get out from under the water? Move! Move! Rub your chest! Rub your belly! hell, rub your back! Rub your toes and get out!”
When routed fro one spot he was continually being driven on to soh his body were sohtly understood before
He was very rasp hoas done, let alone please his exacting host
”Come on!” insisted the latter finally and wearily ”Get out fro yourself! For a man who has been on the bench for fifteen years you're the dullest person I ever met If you bathe like that at home, how do you keep clean? Couished victih towel, looked a little weary and disgusted ”Such language!” some one afterwards said he said to soentleuard And to think we pay for such things! Well, well! I'll not stand it, I', positively revolting!” But he stayed on, just the saood breakfast, his own physical needs At any rate weeks later he was still there and in much better shape physically if not mentally
About the second or third day I witnessed another such spectacle, which h--only not in my host's presence--nay, verily! For into this sae, a lawyer or societyhimself rather leisurely, as was _not_ the prescribed hen suddenly he was spied bysome one in this swift one-minute or less system Now he eyed the operation narrowly for a few seconds, then came over and exclaimed:
”Wash your toes, can't you? Wash your toes! Can't you wash your toes?”
The skilled gentle under very different conditions from those to which presuan to rub the tops of his toes but without any desire apparently to widen the operation
”Here!” called the host, this time much more sharply, ”I said wash your toes, not the outside of them! Soap theh, God knows! Wash between 'em! Wash under 'em!”
”Certainly I knoashup, ”and what's entleentleht to knoash your toes Wash 'em--and don't talk back!”
”Pah!” exclai twice as ridiculous as before
”I'e addressed to me”
”I can't help that,” said Culhane ”If you kneash your toes perhaps you wouldn't have to have such language addressed to you”
”Oh, hell!” fueous! I'll leave the place, by George!”
”Very well,” rejoined the other, ”only before you go you'll have to wash your toes!”
And he did, the host standing by and cal the performance until it was finally completed
It was just this at in which I have ever been It seenet ht presume they would be most opposed to No one here was really any one, however reat blazing personality which dominated everybody, and he did not hesitate to show before one and all that he did so do
Breakfast here consisted of a cereal, a chop and coffee--plentiful but very plain, I thought After breakfast, between eight-thirty and eleven, ere free to do as we chose: write letters, pack our bags if ere leaving, do up our laundry to be sent out, read, orto the nature of the exercise, one had to join a group, either one that was to do the long or short block, as they were known here, or one that was to ride horseback, all exercises being so timed that by proper execution one would arrive at the bathroom door in time to bathe, dress and take ten minutes' rest before luncheon
These exercises were si, as they did in the case of the long and the short blocks (the long block seven, the short fourbetimes, about or over courses laid up hill and down dale, over or through unpaveddry or wet beds of brooks or streams, and across stony or weedy fields, often still da rains But in ular exercise for a long tiht I should never make it, and I was by no ave out and had to be sent for, or caed by the host He seemed to all but despise weakness and had apparently a thousand disagreeable ways of showing it
”If you want to see what poor bags of ard to soreat difficulty in doing the short block, ”look at this Here comes a man sent out to do four measly country oing to die He probably thinks so hi from barrooood name for them, by the way--and never say a word But out here in the country, with plenty of fresh air and a night's rest and a good breakfast, he can't even do four miles in fifty minutes! Think of it! And he probably thinks of himself as a man--boasts before his friends, or his wife, anyhow Lord!”
A day or two later there arrived here a certain e, broad-chested, rather po his ease in one sinecure and another had finally reached the place where he was unable to endure certain tests (or he thought so) which were about to be rown fat in the service As he explained to Culhane, and the latter was always open and ribald afterward in his comments on those who offered explanations of any kind, his plan was to take the course here in order to be able to make the difficult tests later
Culhane resented this, I think He resented people using hi more in life than he could do, and yet he received theht, that they looked down on him because of his lowly birth and purelyattained soo this hich raised him, in a way, to a position of doht of presumably so efficient a person in need of aid or exercise, to be built up, was all that was required to spur hiinable In part at least he argued, I think (for in the last analysis he was really too wise and experienced to take any such petty view, although there is a subconscious ”past-lack”impulse in all our views), that here he was, an ex-policehter, ex-private, ex-waiter, beef-carrier, bouncer, trainer; and here was this grand major, trained at West Point, who actually didn't know any more about life or how to take care of his body than to be coht, whereas he, because of his stay, had been able to survive in perfect condition until sixty and was now in a position to rebuild all these reat institution And to a certain extent he was right, although he seeet or not to know that he was not the creator of his own great strength, by any means, i arranged for that
However that may be, here was the major a suppliant for his services, and here was he, Culhane, and although the reatly decreased diet, still Culhane could not resist the temptation to make a show of him, to picture him as the more or less pathetic exaht shi+ne by contrast Thus on the first day, having sent him around the short block with the others, it was found at twelve, when the ”joggers” were expected to return, and again at twelve-thirty when they were supposed to take their places at the luncheon table, that the heavy major had not arrived He had been seen and passed by all, of course