Science, sir, and that its origin is not of this earth, but only its
discovery. I will leave the book with you and will go, now; but give
yourself no uneasiness--I will give you absent treatment from now till I
go to bed."




CHAPTER III

Under the powerful influence of the near treatment and the absent
treatment together, my bones were gradually retreating inward and
disappearing from view. The good work took a brisk start, now, and went
on swiftly. My body was diligently straining and stretching, this way
and that, to accommodate the processes of restoration, and every minute
or two I heard a dull click inside and knew that the two ends of a
fracture had been successfully joined. This muffled clicking and
gritting and grinding and rasping continued during the next three hours,
and then stopped--the connections had all been made. All except
dislocations; there were only seven of these: hips, shoulders, knees,
neck; so that was soon over; one after another they slipped into their
sockets with a sound like pulling a distant cork, and I jumped up as good
as new, as to framework, and sent for the horse-doctor.

I was obliged to do this because I had a stomach-ache and a cold in the
head, and I was not willing to trust these things any longer in the hands
of a woman whom I did not know, and whose ability to successfully treat
mere disease I had lost all confidence. My position was justified by the
fact that the cold and the ache had been in her charge from the first,
along with the fractures, but had experienced not a shade of relief; and,