Page:Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887).djvu/39

Rh “I shall not take off my hat,” I answered. “I am waiting for the boat, and I shall not remove it.”

“Well, you are not going on any boat. You might as well know it now as later. You are in an asylum for the insane.”

Although fully aware of that fact, her unvarnished words gave me a shock. “I did not want to come here; I am not sick or insane, and I will not stay,” I said.

“It will be a long time before you get out if you don’t do as you are told,” answered Miss Scott. “You might as well take off your hat, or I shall use force, and if I am not able to do it, I have but to touch a bell and I shall get assistance. Will you take it off?”

“No, I will not. I am cold, and I want my hat on, and you can’t make me take it off.”

“I shall give you a few more minutes, and if you don’t take it off then I shall use force, and I warn you it will not be very gentle.”

“If you take my hat off I shall take your cap off; so now.”

Miss Scott was called to the door then, and as I feared that an exhibition of temper might show too much sanity I took off my hat and gloves and was sitting quietly looking into space when she returned. I was hungry, and was quite pleased to see Mary make preparations for dinner. The preparations were simple. She merely pulled a straight bench up along the side of a bare table and ordered the patients to gather ’round the feast; then she brought out a small tin plate on which was a piece of boiled meat and a potato. It could not have been colder had it been cooked the week before, and it had no chance to make acquaintance with salt or pepper. I would not go up to the table, so Mary came to where I sat in a corner, and, while handing out the tin plate, asked;

“Have ye any pennies about ye, dearie?”