Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1893 — HIS QUEER CASE. [ARTICLE]

HIS QUEER CASE.

I have given much and earnest thought lathe subject,’* said Mr Langley, blinking his weak eyes' nervously: "and I am now comforted by absolute belief in the theory which my speculations have led me to adopt as final." “That is very satisfactory, no doubt,’’ said Dr. Edward-. “Is the theory an original one?” •‘Perhaps not altogether original in the fundamental idea,” returned the weak-eyed gentleman, “but I have never met, nor read of any one, who held just precisely tay own views; without some little shades of difference to mar the completeness of the conception.” “Let's have them.” said Dr. Edwards, cheerily. “The views, 1 mean, not the differences." ‘‘But I have already entered into them in detail,” said Mr Langley, looking as hard as the condition of his eyes would ; allow at the doctor, who had.been up all night with a bad case, and had been enjoying a comfortable little doze through the lost details. The doctor blushed. “Yes. yes,” lie said, in guilty confu- \ sion; “but what I want now is a brief j summary—a neat synopsis, to bear the whole in on my mind in a condensed and portable form.” “Well, then, shortly and concisely, 1 ray belief is that after death our souls will animate bodies similar to those which have suffered under our hands in the present life” “You don’t mean to say that I am to be all my own patients?” interrupted I)r. Edwards, becoming ejuite wideawake. Mr. Langley smiled with an air of benevolent superiority. “No.” he said, “pain inflicted for necessary and legitimate ends cannot call for punishment. In your ease it is probable that your ego will inhabit only forms of lower animals, and so forth; for I will venture to affirm, from my intimate knowledge of your amiable character, that you have never needlessly wounded either the body or mind of a human being.” “I lielievc I have treated the lower auiraals fairly well,” objected the doctor. “Even in the cause of scieuce I have always hatod cruelty, and been ]>articularly free with the chloroform.” “Have you never taken the life of a bird or animal in sport, or of an insect in impatience?” asked Mr. Langley, solemnly. “No,” answered Dr. Edwards, with positive emphasis. “When I attended the out-patient# in my younger days, I used to smother myself in Keating,’and the insects would not come near me at any price”—Mr. Langley made a grimace—“and as for sport, I never went in for it at any time of my life. leisure was wanting, even if inclination had been present.” “Then you have killed absolutely nothing; not even a spider, nor even a—a rat?”

‘•Well, now that you mention it. I believe I did murder a spider only this morning. The brute let himself down on the top of mv head when I was shaving. An unfortunate bachelor’s room is never free from cobwebs. And you are right about the rat. I shot an oid sinner once to oblige my sister wheu I was staying in her house. But I shot it, mind you. I didn’t set a trap for it, nor worry it with a terrier. On the whole, 1 don’t think your theory has any terrors for me; so, for that very reason, you may have hopes of claiming me as a disciple one of these days, when 1 have time to give my full attention to the subject, ißy the way, are you a Chela, and have you got a Mahatma to revere?” j have, indeed, explained myself ill jjf.you confound my simple belief with tije theosophical acceptation of re-incar-nation. I merely substitute metempsv■chpsis, limited by the conditions mentioned, for your orthodox ideas of future t .punishment. can be clearer than” ‘>ll “.The surgery bell!” exclaimed the f. doctor. “You must excuse me, my dear > fell Aw. Turn up for dinner at half past And goodbye until then.” Mfl'-Langley, who was spending a few days in town with his brother-in-law, His appearance punctually in the doping room that evening, and lost no irecurring to his pet theory. He his hobby straight through each continued to ride it until ■ .iise dpe-tor smoked his last pipe and went to bed in much weariness of spirit. very tired, and rather ill that nigbftsftpa poor, overworked doctor well iPtigHt-- Hp had been doing too much of Wbt M#l was unduly depressed and •ervoes about his own state of health. ■ ELa lay down on his comfortable spring mattress made with the newest improvc-’-HMftta. feeling very uncomfortable iu>pe of repose, xamination of my he thought. “I g last time, and it my heart is un>ut how can I get

side, always ready to talk a nole through an iron pot? Can’t the man see 1 don’t care half a straw for him and his departed spirits? 1 must get rid of him at any price, or he will send me ion the journey to find out all about it. Ah. my heart! It is all over with me this time!” The poor man started weakly as his heart gave a great bound—and stopped. A deadly languor, a horrible powerlessness overwhelmed his frame; but, memtally clear to the last, he found himself calmly observing the sensations of ceasing to exist. Oblivion followed; and then—horror of horrors—he was crawling along a ceiling on eight legs—or thereabouts; it did not seem possible to count them accurately. He reached the corner and made an exceptionable cobweb there, greatly admiring his own proficiency in the art; and he was just proceeding to breakfast on a fat little housefly which he had caught in it, when a chambermaid came in with a broom and swept him out of his coign of vantage. He curled up ail his legs and lay for dead on the floor; so the girl, who was an ignorant young person, did not kill him. thinking she had done so already, but merely brushed him into the dust- j pan and carried him on to the next room that she visited in the course of her morning perambulations. Here he found means to escape, and lay low until the maid departed, when he immediately began to travel up toward the ceiling again. He tried to calculate how many times his own height he had fallen and to realize the extraordinary fact that he was <)uite uninjured; but he found himself unable to think very connectedly j about anything, and began to observe

the details of the room, which seemed familiar. A middle-aged gentleman in a dress-iug-gown entered presently from an adjoining bedroom, took up a little eun of hot water which the hostile muid had left there, and set about shaving himself. Dr. Edwards, in his new body, stood on the ceiling directly over the lookingglass, and was able to take note of a small bald spot on the top of this gentleman’s head. It possessed some mysterious attraction for him. and he could no longer give his attention to anything else. All his faculties became absorbed in a great desire to reach the little bald spot, and stand on it. There was nothing to hinder him. If he wanted a rope to let himself down by, ho could make it; and he did so. Very gradually he descended, pausing sometimes to make sure that he was unobserved; but the owner of the bald spot was completely taken up with his shaving, and noticed nothing higher than his own chin. The rope lengthened, the spider-doctor dropped lower and lower, and finally reached the goal of his ambition. lie stood on a little pink oasis in a desert of sandy hair, and was conscious of a ridiculous aspiration for feathers. He wanted to clap his wings and crow, be was so delighted. Then he made a gentle movement with his various legs, the head jerked, the ra7.or made a gash, the man cried out, brought Ids hand to hear on the bald spot with much violence; and—again oblivion. A little later he was sitting on a shelf in a storeroom that he had certainly seen before. This time he had only four legs—with a tail thrown in—and he was eating the end of a tallow candle. "Horrible!” he thought. “Langley was right, though I always thought him such an ass. lam a rat, And I enjoy | tallow.” I He made a good meal, and modestly retired when lie heard the key turn in the lock. It was his sister's voice that broke on the silence of that capacious storeroom, and he knew he had heard words very like these from her once before. “The servants’ candles are all gnawed and spoilt again,” she cried. “That rat’s keep costs me three shillings a week at the very least. Do help me to hunt him out, John,”

“Not I,” answered Mr. Langley’s voice from without. “Better call your brother. 1 dare say lie docs not mind that sort of thing.” “What meanness !” reflected the hidden listener. “Langley does not want to be a rat himself, but he dues not mind letting another fellow in for it.” He traveled sadly through a thick wall, perforated by a narrow passage which finally conducted him to a cellar, into the darkness of which he peered, with his head thrust out of a small hole in the corner. Again the grating of a key! There was plenty of time for retreat, but he remained obstinately still, scorning to tlv from his fate, lie knew it was coming, for he had acted in this scene before, only performing a different port. The door was thrown open; he scurried across the floor of the cellar as a flood of light burst into it; there was a loud report, and “If you please sir, would you be good enough to wake? That’s Mrs. Goldsmith’s coaehmin u-knocking down the door. The old lady must be took bad again, and you not so much as dressed.” “Sleep well last night?” inquired Mr. Langley at the breakfast table. “Eight solid hours. Only dreamed a little toward morning,” answered the doctor. “But I saw a patient before you were out of bed. Nothing the matter with the old lady except nerves; and I shall be suffering from the same complaint myself if I don’t take a holiday; so I shall just leave the patients to Finch, and run down to Eleanor for a week.” And Mr. Langley told liis wife privately that it was indeed time her poor brother took a rest, for there could be little doubt that his mind was suffering. “Suppose you both take a rest,” said Eleanor. “I ain sure you need it, too, my dear.”—[Cassell’s Family Magazine.