ew until
then that a duck was built like a watch--that his works were inclosed in
a burglarproof case. Without the use of dynamite the Red Leary-O'Brien
gang could not have broken into those ducks. I thought so then and I
think so yet. Years have passed since then, but I may state that even
now, when there are guests for dinner, we do not have ducks. Unless
somebody else is going to carve, we have liver.

I mention this fact in passing because it shows that I had learned to
revere carving as one of the higher arts, and one not to be approached
except in a spirit of due appreciation of the magnitude of the
undertaking, and after proper consideration and thought and reflection,
and all that sort of thing.

If this were true as regards a mere duck, why not all the more so as
regards the carving of a person of whom I am so very fond as I am of
myself? Thus I reasoned. And finally, had not Doctor Z spoken of the
coming operation as a small matter? Well then?

Thursday at noon I received from Doctor Z's secretary a note stating
that arrangements had been made for my admission into St. Germicide that
same evening and that I was to spend the night there. This hardly seemed
necessary. Still, the tone of the note appeared to indicate that the
hospital authorities particularly wished to have me for an overnight
guest; and as I reflected that probably the poor things had few enough
bright spots in their busy lives, I decided I would humor them along and
gladden the occasion with my presence from dinner-time on.

About eight o'clock I strolled in very jauntily. In my mind I had the
whole programme mapped out. I would stay at the hospital for, say, two
days following the operation--or, at most, three. Then I must be up and
away. I had a good deal of work to do and a number of people to see on
important business, and I could not really afford to waste more than a
weekend on the staff of St. Germicide's. After Monday they must look to
their own devices for social entertainment. That was my idea. Now when
I look back on it I laugh, but it is a hollow laugh and there is no real
merriment in it.

Indeed, almost from the moment of my entrance little things began
to come up that were calculated to have a depressing effect on one's
spirits. Downstairs a serious-looking lady met me and entered in a book
a number of salient facts regarding my personality which the previous
investigators had somehow overlooked. There is a lot of bookkeepin