when ushered into the _first_ room, at beholding six or
seven naked, and apparently dead men, laid round the walls, as if ready
for dissection; to see the monkey-like leap, accompanied by a squeal,
with which he sprang from a hot stone-bench, having sat down thereon
before it had been covered with a cloth for his reception; to see the
rapid return of his self-possession in these unusual circumstances, and
the ready manner in which he submitted himself to the various
operations, as if he had been accustomed to Turkish baths from a period
long prior to infancy; to see his horror on being introduced to the
hottest room, and his furtive glance at the door, as though he meditated
a rush into the open air, but was restrained by a sense of personal
dignity; to see the ruling passion strong as ever in this (he firmly
believed) his nearest approach to death, when, observing that the man
next to him (who, as it were, turned the corner from him) had raised
himself for a moment to arrange his pillow, he (Gillie) tipped up the
corner of the man's sheet, which hung close to his face in such a manner
that he (the man), on lying down again, placed his bare shoulder on the
hot stone, and sprang up with a yell that startled into life the whole
of the half-sleeping establishment with the exception of the youth on
the opposite bench, who, having noticed the act, was thrown into
convulsions of laughter, much to the alarm of Gillie, who had thought he
was asleep and feared that he might "tell;"--to see him laid down like a
little pink-roll to be kneaded, and to hear him remark, in a calm voice,
to the stalwart attendant that he might go in and win and needn't be
afraid of hurting him; to observe his delight when put under the warm
"douche," his gasping shriek when unexpectedly assailed with the
"cold-shower," and his placid air of supreme felicity when wrapped up
like a ghost in a white sheet, and left to dry in the cooling-room--to
see and hear all this, we say, would have amply repaid a special journey
to London from any reasonable distance. The event, however, being a
thing of the past and language being unequal to the description, we are
compelled to leave it all to the reader's imagination.

CHAPTER SIX.

A LESSON TAUGHT AND LEARNED.

Two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, rather late in
the evening, Dr George Lawrence called at "the cabin" in Grubb's Court,
and found the Captain taking what he called a quiet pi