t to be glad to have
them go quietly, and not have him jailed for malicious mischief or
compounding a felony. The whole thing was an outrage, and the three
train would leave the house as empty as a squeezed lemon.

I wanted to go forward and drop on my knees and implore them to remember
the old doctor, and the baths they'd had when nothing went wrong, and
the days when they'd sworn that the spring kept them young and well, but
there was something in Mr. Pierce's face that kept me back.

"At three o'clock, then," he said. "Very well."

"Don't be a fool!" I heard Mr. Sam from the crowd.

"Is that all you have to say?" roared Mr. von Inwald. I hadn't noticed
him before. He had his sheet on in Grecian style and it looked quite
ornamental although a little short. "Haven't you any apology to make,
sir?"

"Neither apology nor explanation to you," Mr. Pierce retorted. And to
the other: "It is an unfortunate accident--incident, if you prefer." He
looked at Thoburn, who was the only one in a bath robe, and who was the
only cheerful one in the lot. "I had refused a request of the bath
man's and he has taken this form of revenge. If this gives me the
responsibility I am willing to take it. If you expect me to ask you to
stay I'll not do it. I don't mind saying that I am as tired of all this
as you are."

"As tired of what?" demanded Mr. Moody, pushing forward out of the
crowd. Mr. Sam was making frantic gestures to catch Mr. Pierce's eye,
but he would not look at him.

"Of all this," he said. "Of charging people sanatorium prices under a
pretense of making them well. Does anybody here imagine he's going to
find health by sitting around in an overstuffed leather chair, with the
temperature at eighty, eating five meals a day, and walking as far as
the mineral spring for exercise?"

There was a sort of angry snarl in the air, and Mr. Sam threw up his one
free hand in despair.

"In fact," Mr. Pierce went on, "I'd about decided on a new order of
things for this place anyhow. It's going to be a real health resort,
run for people who want to get well or keep well. People who wish to be
overfed, overheated and coddled need not come--or stay."

The bishop spoke over the heads of the others, who looked dazed.

"Does that mean," he inquired mildly, "that--guests must either obey
this new order of things or go away?"

Mr. Pierce looked at the bishop and smiled.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but as every one is leaving, anyhow--"