derous old practitioner of the
conventional type called for by a knowing man, but one of the better
modern type, educated, a man of the world, canny with Scotch blood, but
progressive and with the experimental tendency progressive men exhibit.
Markham told what manner of cup had been put to his lips. "What's the
matter with me!" he demanded.

"Muscular rheumatism."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"Oh, I'll follow the custom of the profession and make you a
prescription."

"And about the effect?"

"Possibly it will help you."

"Just at a casual estimate, how long am I to be crippled?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

The doctor laughed. "There's a difference in rheumatism--and in men. If
you don't mind, I'll reserve my answer for a day or two."

Markham growled. The doctor went away after writing upon a bit of paper
these hieroglyphics:

[Handwriting: illegible prescription]

The prescription came, a powder of about the color of a pulverized
Rameses II, and with what Markham thought might be very nearly the
flavor of that defunct but estimable monarch. Night came also at length,
and with it came an experience, new even to this man who had been
knocked about somewhat, and who thought he knew his world. A man with a
pain and isolation can make a great study of the former, and Markham had
certainly all facilities in such uncanny direction. The day passed
drearily, but without much suffering to the man in the bed. He could
read, holding his book in his left hand, and he read far into the night.
Then he was formally introduced--he couldn't help it--to Our Lady of
Rheumatism. He was destined to become as well acquainted with her as was
Antony with Cleopatra, or Pericles with Aspasia. Not extended, but
violent, was to be the flirtation between these two.

Markham was tired and inclined to sleep, despite the obstacle
intervening with each movement. Exhaustion forces a man to sleep
sometimes when the pain which racks him is such that sleep would, under
other circumstances, be impossible. When sleeping, come dreams of
whatever object is nearest the heart, but the dreams are ever fantastic
and distorted. There may be pleasant phases to the imagined
happenings--this must be when the pain has for the moment ceased--but
the dream is usually most perplexing, and its culmination most
grotesque. At first Markham could not sleep at all. He was experiencing
new sensations. From the affected leg and arm the