Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/260

250 It was a good two hours before dinner, and his wife, he learned from the maid, had gone out to make some calls.

Being a fairly resourceful man, and having a book of instructions, it did not take him long to get the vapor-bath cabinet in working order. But he was cautious. Before either disrobing or starting the blaze that was to create the vapor he experimented, "to see," as he expressed it, "what kind of a fit it was." Seating himself on the chair within, he closed it round him like a drygoods box, his head alone sticking out through a hole in the top. It proved to be rather a tight squeeze, but he was able to shut himself in, and he smiled with cheerful anticipation of the immediate flight of all bodily ailments.

"It certainly ought to do me a lot of good," he soliloquized. "What we mortals need is something that will make our pores attend strictly to business. I'll bet Martha will find me fresher and brighter to-night than I have been for a year."

Then he lighted it up, disrobed, fastened himself in the cabinet, and waited. It was rather slower in setting about the work to be done than he had anticipated, but the sensations were pleasurable, and he only regretted that he had not been thoughtful enough to lay a paper on the top of the cabinet so that he could pass the time by reading. But that was a minor matter. The main thing was that he was being brought back to a condition of perfect health. He could actually feel the change, but it came in spots. Some parts of his anatomy were being rejuvenated more rapidly than others. This set him to wondering whether the thing were working right, and he began to worry. It was annoying to have a blaze that he could not see in such close proximity to him; it might set something afire and scorch him before he could release himself.

"This thing is bound to make a man perspire one way or another," he muttered; "if the steam doesn't do it, the anxiety will. My head, which is outside, is perspiring worse than the rest of me that's inside."

Then a fly settled on the tip of his nose. He shook it off, and it settled on his forehead. He shook it off again, and it went back to his nose, after which it tried to locate on one ear.

"I'd give a million dollars," he exclaimed, "for just one swat at that fly."

But the fly was forgotten when he heard a step in the hall.

"Great Scott! I wonder if I locked that door?" he muttered anxiously.

The answer came almost immediately, for the door slowly opened and a strange man looked in. He hastily dodged back when he saw the room was occupied, but almost instantly looked in again and surveyed with some curiosity what was visible of the astonished occupant.