After five minutes, a nurse looked in and asked casually, "Did you call?" "My stomach!" groaned Ollie. "Somebody's hittin' me in my stomach!" "It's a tummyache," she said with a cheerful smile. "It should teach you not to wolf your food." Then she caught a glimpse of his stomach, from which Ollie, in his agony, had cast off the sheet, and she gulped. It was swollen like a watermelon--or, rather, like a watermelon with great warts. Lumps stuck out all over it. She rushed out, calling, "Doctor Manson! Doctor Manson!" When she returned with two doctors, Ollie was in such acute misery that he didn't even notice them. One doctor said, "Well, I'll be damned!" and began tapping the swollen stomach. The other doctor demanded, "When did this happen?" "Right now, I guess," replied the nurse. "Just a few minutes ago his stomach was as flat as the way it was when you saw it." "We'd better give him a shot of morphine to put him out of his pain," said the first doctor, "and then we'll X-ray him." Ollie was in a semi-coma as they lifted him off his bed and wheeled him into the X-ray room. He didn't hear a word of the ensuing discussion about the photographs, although the doctors talked freely in front of him--freely and profanely. It was Dr. Manson who demanded, "What in God's name are those things, anyway?" "They look like pineapples and grapefruit," replied the bewildered X-ray specialist. "Square-edged pineapples? Grapefruit with one end pointed?" "I didn't say that's what they are," returned the other defensively. "I said that's what they look like. The grapefruit could be eggplant," he added in confusion. "Eggplant, my foot. How the devil did they get into his stomach, anyway? He's been eating like a pig, but even a pig couldn't have gotten those things down its throat." "Wake him up and ask him." "He doesn't know any more than we do," said the nurse. "He told me that it felt as if somebody was hitting him in the stomach. That's all he'd be able to tell us." "He's got the damnedest stomach I ever heard of," marveled Dr. Manson. "Let's open it up and take a look at it from the inside." "We'll have to get his consent," said the specialist nervously. "I know it would be interesting, but we can't cut into him unless he's willing." "It would be for his own good. We'd get that unsliced fruit salad out of him." Dr. Manson stared at the X-ray plates again. "Pineapples, grapefruit, something that looks like a banana with a small bush on top. Assorted large round objects. And what looks like a nut. A small nut." If Ollie had been aware, he might have told Dr. Manson that the nut was the kernel of the trouble. As it was, all he could do was groan. "He's coming to," said the nurse. "Good," asserted Dr. Manson. "Get a release, Nurse, and the minute he's capable of following directions, have him sign it." * * * * *