The Nevada County picayune., 1911-08-25

E1aIYSAEIfJ.HH constrained ana lhpeF- kGS}T7M5 ctH sona interest to the s--'---'7z'-----@ head nurse and 10 two or three of the cadet nurses in the hos uital about the operation they were going to perform upon him that very day.
 The nurses in their neat little uni forms of blue and white stripes, the head nurse in her spotless all-white, the resident doctor in his shining white trousers and jacket, the plainly dressed women who visited the hos pital, and to whom. in spite Of their simple attire and manners, everybody seemed to pay such respect and at tention. and the superintendent of the hospital himself, who had come up to see Bill three or four times the day before, while Bill was resting LID" for the operation. were all so nice and kind to him that he almost forgot it. and probably would have forgotten 1t altogether were 1t not for the fact that he missed his regu- lar breakfast.
 Over at the old homestead in Con 
 a hospital in the big city was dark and dismal den in which man was flung in wet blanket on the floor and let stay there until he died from hunger. True, Bill was only nineteen and still had the world before him: and the experience you are likely to get in nineteen years or fire np 1 l'Dnnec- ticut homestead farm is scarcely the kind of thing that makes you i'm pervious to the strong impressions chat stream in upon you when you come to the city and plunge into the intricate mazes of an ultra-modern civilization.
 But the most wonderful thing about all this business was the electro-mag- .netic personality of Cringer.
 Cringer was a surgeon for whom all sorts of hideous long words, con .eealing in the perfectly inserutable depths of their Greek derivations the most awful things imaginable, were the food of his body and the breath of his soul.
 To know Cringer intimately and well was to be convinced that your life was incomplete and failure had you not been internally mu1lated- and preferably by the hand of Cringer himself. And when Bill came to see him that time about that little trouble in his left upper jaw, Cringer had so thoroughly hypnotized him that Bill went to the hospital in the same state of mind with which he was wont to look forward to a Fourth of July cele- bration.
 Its pity. tool" the head nurse said to Cringer Hes such hand some dear boy. and so simple and trusting. And he's so big for his age!"
 She was pinning towel about Cringer's head as a precaution against possible infection of the patient while Cringer would be over him at the operation.
 What do you mean?" grunted the surgeon severely
 Why. it'll disfigure him wretchedly. won't it?"
 .Dishgure him? l should say not!'
 But you can hardly remove a persons upper jaw without dishguring a person, can you?
 'Ah-ha!" drawled Cringer, as if he had been suddenly enlightened. Il see how 1t is with you! You have never heard of such thing as sil- yer jawi-Never mind, now. Don't you try to let on anything to the doe tor! A silver jaw Is one of the little tricks of the trade that you happened to miss in the course of your wonder ful experience Don't you know that we just fit them out with a silver Jaw in the place of the old one, and that they're just as good as ever Yes. better than ever l believe that I'd sooner have good silver jaw than the ons I've got. And as for this resection that I'm going to do why. it's nothing: nothing at all I've done 1t ten times. No moro to 1t than there is to drinking cup of coffee before you get up out of bed in the morning. Are they ready? Then bring him up"
 AS they brought Bill up he could hear Cringer laughing with one of his assistants and chatting as if hospitals and other gloomy things of the kind had no existence whatever. But Cringer's strong hypnotic infu- ence was not quite sufficient to pre- vent Bill from feeling a little nerve IS as they gave him an eighth of a grain of morphine and placed pneumatic pillow under his head to let him rest a little before the anesthesia. And Bill was never so surprised in the entire nineteen years of his life as he was when Cringer lifted him up to sitting posture and asked him how he felt.
 Was it over already? He knew they had been doing something yillainous t~s. E- a |. .f..TIx .