The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backward as hard as Icould.
``That will answer,'' said the surgeon, to my horror.``A clever rogue.Send him to the guard-house.''
Happy had I been had my ill luck ended here, but as I crossed the yard an officer stopped me.To my disgust, it was the captain of my old Rhode Island company.
``Hello!'' said he; ``keep that fellow safe.
I know him.''
To cut short a long story, I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among my papers.I was finally sent to Fort Delaware and kept at hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up cigar-stumps, and other light, unpleasant occupations.
When the war was over I was released.I went at once to Boston, where I had about four hundred dollars in bank.I spent nearly all of this sum before I could satisfy the accumulated cravings of a year and a half without drink or tobacco, or a decent meal.Iwas about to engage in a little business as a vender of lottery policies when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind.Month after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible sense of weariness went on from bad to worse.At last one day, after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult a well-known physician.He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions, and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read.
It was a preparation of arsenic.
``What do you think,'' said I, ``is the matter with me, doctor?''
``I am afraid,'' said he, ``that you have a very serious trouble--what we call Addison's disease.''
``What's that?'' said I.
``I do not think you would comprehend it,'' he replied; ``it is an affection of the suprarenal capsules.''
I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew what they were meant for.It seemed that doctors had found a use for them at last.
``Is it a dangerous disease?'' I said.
``I fear so,'' he answered.
``Don't you really know,'' I asked, ``what's the truth about it?''
``Well,'' he returned gravely, ``I'm sorry to tell you it is a very dangerous malady.''
``Nonsense!'' said I; ``I don't believe it'';for I thought it was only a doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.
``Thank you,'' said he; ``you are a very ill man, and a fool besides.Good morning.''
He forgot to ask for a fee, and I did not therefore find it necessary to escape payment by telling him I was a doctor.
Several weeks went by; my money was gone, my clothes were ragged, and, like my body, nearly worn out, and now I am an inmate of a hospital.To-day I feel weaker than when I first began to write.How it will end, I do not know.If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history, and if I live, Ishall burn it, and as soon as I get a little money I will set out to look for my sister.
I dreamed about her last night.What I dreamed was not very agreeable.I thought it was night.I was walking up one of the vilest streets near my old office, and a girl spoke to me--a shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes.Suddenly she screamed, ``Brother, brother!'' and then remembering what she had been, with her round, girlish, innocent face and fair hair, and seeing what she was now, I awoke and saw the dim light of the half-darkened ward.
I am better to-day.Writing all this stuff has amused me and, I think, done me good.
That was a horrid dream I had.I suppose Imust tear up all this biography.
``Hello, nurse! The little boy--boy--''
``GOOD HEAVENS!'' said the nurse, ``he is dead! Dr.Alston said it would happen this way.The screen, quick--the screen--and let the doctor know.''