Ever been a patient in a hospital? No? Well, I’ve been in them six times—and not always a patient. Sometimes I was an impatient. For a person really ill or injured the hospital is the proper place. My first experience in one was at the Montreal Western Hospital in 1905. I had just arrived from the Pacific Coast by way of St. Paul and Toronto, suffering most intense pain, but utterly oblivious of the cause of the trouble. At Glenwood Lake in Dakota we—I was with a party of United States newspaper men from Washington, D.C.—stopped for a sail on that beautiful water. The craft was a gasoline motor and the boat round and about the engine was saturated with gasoline. The combined captain, pilot and crew was an inveterate cigarette fiend, and the way he lit his “coffin nails” and unconcernedly threw the still-burning matches on the deck was a holy fright. I said to Jerry Jermayne, of the Seattle _Times_, who sat beside me, as I pointed to the overcast sky, “I wonder, Jerry, what’s beyond those clouds?” “Why do you ask?” he inquired. Racked with pain my rejoinder came, “Well, if that fellow keeps on throwing those lighted matches on this tinder wood, we’ll be going up there—if we don’t go the other way!” * * * * * But nothing happened, and after a couple of days and nights of agonizing pain, we reached Toronto, where good-by and God-speed were wished to our American friends. Next morning I was home and still unaware of what painfully ailed me. I sent for Dr. England, who hurriedly called in consultation Dr. Jim Bell, as good an authority on the human anatomy as ever lived. Naturally, I watched their faces as they returned from the consultation after having examined me, and I saw from their drawn facial expression that trouble loomed ahead. They told me I had appendicitis and that an operation to remove the appendix was absolutely and immediately necessary. My father had died of appendicitis—only it wasn’t known by that name then, but as inflammation of the bowels—and my eldest son, Van, succumbed to an operation, and I said to myself, “Three times and out.” But out loud I mentioned to the doctors: “Well, if you have to take out my appendix, go on and do your worst, but for goodness sake, leave me my preface and table of contents.” * * * * * Shortly after, the operation, which was a serious one, was performed. I will never forget the awful darkness that overshadowed me as the opiate took effect. My last thought was: “This is eternity.” When I recovered from the effects of the opiate, I found myself in a darkened room and wondered where I was and what it was all about. The kindly-featured nurse quickly discovered that my consciousness had returned, and came to my bedside, and then I remembered everything. “But why this dark room. It was early morning when they operated on me, but now it can’t be night.”