can stand outside that door all day if you choose," I said. "I
won't open it until the three men I have named appear. I have prepared
for a siege; and I have enough food in this room to keep me going for a
day anyway."

Realizing at last that no argument would move me, he set about forcing
an entrance. First he tried to remove the transom by striking it with a
stout stick. I gave blow for blow and the transom remained in place. A
carpenter was then sent for, but before he could go about his work one
of the attendants managed to open the door enough to thrust in his arm
and shove aside my barricade. I did not realize what was being done
until it was too late to interfere. The door once open, in rushed the
doctor and four attendants. Without ceremony I was thrown upon the bed,
with two or three of the attacking force on top of me. Again I was
choked, this time by the doctor. The operation was a matter of only a
moment. But before it was over I had the good fortune to deal the
doctor a stinging blow on the jaw, for which (as he was about my own
age and the odds were five to one) I have never felt called upon to
apologize.

Once I was subdued, each of the four attendants attached himself to a
leg or an arm and, under the direction and leadership of the doctor, I
was carried bodily through two corridors, down two flights of stairs,
and to the violent ward. My dramatic exit startled my fellow-patients,
for so much action in so short a time is seldom seen in a quiet ward.
And few patients placed in the violent ward are introduced with so
impressive an array of camp-followers as I had that day.

All this to me was a huge joke, with a good purpose behind it. Though
excited I was good-natured and, on the way to my new quarters, I said
to the doctor: "Whether you believe it or not, it's a fact that I'm
going to reform these institutions before I'm done. I raised this
rumpus to make you transfer me to the violent ward. What I want you to
do now is to show me the worst you've got."

"You needn't worry," the doctor said. "You'll get it."

He spoke the truth.

XIX

Even for a violent ward my entrance was spectacular--if not dramatic.
The three attendants regularly in charge naturally jumped to the
conclusion that, in me, a troublesome patient had been foisted upon
them. They noted my arrival with an unpleasant curiosity, which in turn
aroused _my_ curiosity, for it took but a glance to convince me that my
burly keepe