The Dark Tower

“You can laugh,” he said almost admiringly. “I daren’t, you know; that’s one of the things I’m told not to do, but I often wish some one would come here and laugh at the jokes for me. It’s quite an effort for me sometimes not to burst out; and then, you see, hemorrhage! I knew a poor chap who literally died of it — died of laughing. They might put that in the ‘Pink ’Un,’ mightn’t they?”

Winn said he thought one might die of worse things.

“Yes, I know,” agreed Mr. Bouncing, “but I’m not going to be caught like that. I dare say you don’t know, but I believe I’m the worst case in the hotel. I’m not quite sure; that’s what worries me. There’s a Mrs. Maguire who stays in bed. I’ve made all sorts of inquiries about her; but people are so stupid, they don’t know the right symptoms to ask about, and I can’t go in and look at her, can I? And my wife won’t. She says one death’s-head is enough for her and I quite see her point. Perhaps Mrs. Maguire’s case is partly nerves. My wife thinks I’m very nervous. So I am, you know, in a way. I have to be careful; but, Lord! when I see the things people do up here! The risks they take! You, for instance. I’ve seen you do heaps of things that are perfectly deadly; and yet there you are getting better. Funny, isn’t it?”

Winn said it was funny, but he supposed one must take his chance.

“Yes, I know; that is what people keep saying,” Mr. Bouncing admitted. “You can take it if you’ve got it; but my point is, if you haven’t got it, you can’t take it, can you? Now, as far as I can see, looking back from the start, you know, I never had a dog’s chance. It’s years since I went out in a wind without an overcoat on, and once in the very beginning I got my feet wet; but for the last five years I’ve been as careful as a girl with a new hat. I think I shall live till the spring if I don’t get influenza. I hope you’ll remember not to come near me if you feel a cold coming on.” Winn assured him that he would. “I asked Dr. Gurnet the other day,” Mr. Bouncing went on musingly, “if he thought I should ever be able to walk to the post-office again — I used to get there and back last winter, you know — but he wouldn’t give me a direct answer. He said he thought I could rely on the hotel porter. He’s not quite definite enough — Dr. Gurnet. I told him the other day how difficult it was to get up in the morning, and he said, ‘Well, then, why not stay in bed?’ But I’m not going to do that. I believe you go quicker when you stay in bed. Besides, I should be dull lying there in bed. I like to sit here and watch people and see the silly things they do. That young boy you sit at table with — he won’t come to any good. Silly! He thinks my wife likes him, but she doesn’t; it’s just that she must have her mind taken off, you know, at times, poor thing. I like to see her amused.”

“And what about you?” asked Winn. “It seems to me she might better spend some of her time amusing you.”

Mr. Bouncing pointed to the “Pink ’Un.”

“I’ve got plenty to amuse me,” he explained, “and you mustn’t think she doesn’t look after me. Why, the other day — when I had the high temperature, you know, and stayed in my room — she came to the door after she’d been skating, and said, ‘Still coughing?’ That shows she noticed I was worse, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure she must be awfully anxious about you,” Winn assented with more kindliness than truth. “But do you care for her knocking about so with young Rivers and that chap Roper? It seems to me she’s too young and too pretty. If I were you, I’d call her in a bit; I would really.”

Mr. Bouncing leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. This always made Winn a little uneasy, for when Mr. Bouncing’s eyes were shut it was so difficult to tell whether he was alive or dead. However, after a few minutes he opened them.

“They are five minutes late with my hot milk,” he said. “Do you mind just getting up and touching the bell? And you’ve got such a sharp way of speaking to waiters, perhaps you wouldn’t mind hauling him over the coals for me when he comes?” Winn complied with this request rapidly and effectively, and the hot milk appeared as if by magic.

Mr. Bouncing drank some before he returned to the subject of his wife.

“Yes,” he said, “I dare say you would call her in. You’re the kind of man who can make people come in when you call. I’m not. Besides, you see, she’s young; she’s got her life to live, and, then, ought I to have married her at all? Of course I was wonderfully well at the time; I could walk several miles, I remember, and had no fever to speak of. Still, there were the symptoms. She took the risk, of course — she was one of a large family, and I had money — but it hasn’t been very amusing for her, you must admit.”

Winn didn’t admit it, because it seemed to him as if it had been extremely amusing for Mrs. Bouncing, a great deal more amusing than it had any right to be.