ounded by
all the apparatus to restrain alcoholic excess, and not even the
slightest exhilaration of spirit to justify the depressing scene. It
was annoying to see frequent notices such as: This Entrance for
Brandy-Topers; or Vodka Patients in This Ward; or Inmates Must Not Bite
Off the Door-Knobs. It seemed carrying a jest too far when these
citizens, most of whom had not even smelt a drink in two years, found
themselves billeted into padded cells and confronted by rows of
strait-jackets. Moreover, the Home had lain unused for many months: it
was dusty, dilapidated, and of a moldy savor. Some of the unwilling
visitors, finding that the grounds included a strip of sandy beach,
took their ordeal with reasonable philosophy. "Since we are to be
slaves," they said, "at least let's have some serf bathing." And
donning (with a shudder) the rather gruesome padded bathing suits they
found in the lockers, they went off for a swim. Others, of a humorous
turn, derived a certain rudimentary amusement in studying the garden
marked Reserved for Patients with Insane Delusions, where they found a
very excellent relief-model of the battleground of the Marne, laid out
by a former inmate who had imagined himself to be General Joffre. But
most of them stood about in groups, talking bitterly.

Quimbleton, therefore, found a receptive audience for his Spartacus
scheme of organizing this band of downtrodden victims into a fighting
force. He gathered them into the dining-hall of the Home and addressed
them in spirited language.

"My friends" (he said), "unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I
feel it my duty to administer a few remarks on the subject of our
present situation.

"And the first thought that comes to my mind, candidly, is this, that
we must give Bishop Chuff credit for a quality we never imagined him to
possess. That quality, gentlemen, is a sense of humor. I hear some
dissent; and yet it seems to me to be somewhat humorous that this
gathering, composed of men who were accustomed, in the good old days,
to carry their liquor like gentlemen, should now, when they have been
cold sober for two years, be incarcerated in this humiliating place,
surrounded by the morbid relics of those weaker souls who found their
grog too strong for them.

"I say therefore that we must give Bishop Chuff credit for a sense of
humor. It makes him all the more deadly enemy. Yet I think we will have
the laugh on him yet, in a manner I shall presentl