“Yes, I feel quite prepared,” said I, and without stopping to realize how it might shock his religious sensibilities I added--“But if you saw a man in a pasture running for a fence with a raging bull close at his heels there wouldn’t be much use stopping him to inquire if he were prepared for the consequences in case he stumbled.” A few days later, though my head still reeled and I felt the slowly increasing ravages of some sort of poisoning, I became restless for a change of environment. The hospital rooms were equipped with an electrical signaling instrument that clicked busily night and day, and nearly drove me mad. Then came Christmas Eve, with a group of noisy merry-makers parading up and down the corridors, singing Christmas carols and hallelujah songs. It was after visitors’ hours, and my night nurse having gone out, perhaps to join in the festivities, I lay there conjuring up melancholy thoughts, and contrasting the wretchedness of that night with the happiness of former times. Whether it was the peculiar nature of my illness or what, I cannot say, but Christmas music seemed utterly out of tune with my situation, and I can recall nothing that ever made me so blue, either before or after. At length Doctor Will submitted to my entreaties, and so they bundled me up, put me onto a stretcher and took me in an ambulance down to the Kahler hospital, where I was placed on the convalescent floor. This brought me more conveniently near my family, who were living at the Kahler hotel, in the same building with the hospital. For the first two days I was reduced to one nurse, who did twenty-hour duty; that is, she was off from two till six P. M., and during this interval various members of my family took turns at entertaining me by trying to convince me that the doctors, nurses and everybody else knew more than I did. Now that I was listed among the convalescents, they couldn’t understand what made me persist in being so stubborn about getting well. Indeed doctors, nurses, friends and relatives all boosted me along and although I had lost nearly thirty pounds--mostly from my face, it seemed--they all insisted that I was improving rapidly and “looking fine.” Several letters and telegrams came from friends congratulating me on my rapid recovery, and everybody seemed jubilant, except me. “Where do they all get their glad news?” I asked. “It’s the only information I have of any improvement. Don’t try to fool yourselves or me--I’m _sick_! Call it stubbornness or whatever you will, but I tell you, something has _got_ me!”