heumatism was no longer confining itself to the
right leg and the right arm, but rioted through all the man's limbs and
about his back and shoulders. It went about like a vulture after food,
alighting where it found prey to suit its fancy.

There would be the bubble and trickle beneath the knee and in the calf
of the leg, and then would come the increase of turbulence as the flood
rose, and then the boiling and the torture culminating throughout a long
hour and a half. Then the new murmur somewhere else and the same event.
Even in a finger or a toe definitely would the thing at times occur, the
pain being, if possible, more intense in such event, because, seemingly,
more contracted.

Pains may be said to have colors; in fact, this can be recognized even
by the less imaginative. A burn, a cut, you have a scarlet pain. A slap
might produce a pink pain, something less intense. But the pain of
rheumatism is of another sort; there is no glitter to it. It is always
blue, light at first, and gradually deepening until it becomes the very
blue-blackness of all misery. This is the muscular stage; when it
reaches the inflammatory there is a new sensation, something almost
grinding. This latter feature Markham had to learn, for when morning
broke, a single toe and all of one hand were swollen and unbendable. He
was becoming an expert on sensations. He had formed his own idea of the
Spanish Inquisition. It had never invented anything worth while, after
all!

At 11 A.M. all pain suddenly ceased--even Our Lady of Rheumatism tires
temporarily of caressing--and the exhausted man slept. What a sleep it
was--glorious, but not dreamless. He was wandering through the halls of
the greatest fair the world has ever seen, and he had a purse! The
exhibitors were selling things, and what marvels he bought for Her!
There were Russian sables fit for her slender shoulders, and he took
them. Robes of the silver fox as soft as eider-down, and a cloak of
royal ermine; he secured them, too. She was fond of rubies, and he
purchased the most glorious of them all. For himself he bought but a
single thing, a picture of a woman with a neck like hers. And then,
wandering about seeking more gifts, he came to where they were melting a
silver statue of an actress and stepped into a pan of the molten metal!
He awoke then. Our Lady was caressing him again.

The doctor came and heard the story, and to say that Markham exhibited a
great command of language in th