Having shaved me, the young man did me up amidships in a neat
cloth parcel, took his kit under his arm and went away.
It occurred to me that, considering the trivial nature of the case,
a good deal of fuss was being made over me by persons who could
have no personal concern in the matter whatsoever. This thought
recurred to me frequently as I lay there all tied in a bundle like
a week's washing. I did not feel quite so uppish as I had felt.
Why was everybody picking on me?
Anon I slept, but dreamed fitfully. I dreamed that a whole flock
of surgeons came to my bedside and charted me out in sections,
like one of those diagram pictures you see of a beef in the Handy
Compendium of Universal Knowledge, showing the various cuts and
the butcher's pet name for each cut. Each man took his favorite
joint and carried it away, and when they were all gone I was merely
a recent site, full of reverberating echoes and nothing else.
I have had happier dreams in my time; this was not the kind of
dream I should have selected had the choice been left to me.
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