One Hour a Day to be given to Bodily Exercise.... How long, O Lord, how
long!
Fifi returned directly with white cloths, scissors, and two large
bottles.
"I won't take hardly a minute--you see! Listen, Mr. Queed. One of these
bottles heals fairly well and doesn't hurt at all worth mentioning.
That's witch-hazel. The other heals very well and fast, but
stings--well, a lot; and that's turpentine. Which will you take?"
"The turpentine," said Mr. Queed in a martyr's voice.
Fifi's hands were very deft. In less than no time, she made a little
lint pad, soaked it in the pungent turpentine, applied it to the
unsightly swelling, and bound it firmly to the young man's head with a
snowy band. In all of Mr. Queed's life, this was the first time that a
woman had ministered to him. To himself, he involuntarily confessed that
the touch of the girl's hands upon his forehead was not so annoying as
you might have expected.
Fifi drew off and surveyed her work sympathetically yet professionally.
The effect of the white cloth riding aslant over the round glasses and
academic countenance was wonderfully rakish and devil-may-care.
"Do you feel the sting much so far?"
"A trifle," said the Doctor.
"It works up fast to a kind of--climax, as I remember, and then slowly
dies away. The climax will be pretty bad--I'm so sorry! But when it's at
its worst just say to yourself, 'This is doing me lots and lots of
good,' and then you won't mind so much."
"I will follow the directions," said he, squirming in his chair.
"Thank you for letting me do it, and for the algebra, and--good-night."
"Good-night."
He immediately abandoned all pretense of working. To him it seemed that
the climax of the turpentine had come instantly; there was no more
working up about it than there was about a live red coal. The mordant
tooth bit into his blood; he rose and tramped the floor, muttering
savagely to himself. But he would not pluck the hateful thing off, no,
no--for that would have been an admission that he was wrong in putting
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