A COMPLICATION.

Lake County Press, Issue 977, 29 August 1901, Page 2

A COMPLICATION.

Everybody had got influenza. Everybody except Mr Henry Johns, as that gentleman gloomily reflected to himself on his way back from the office. “ Not that I want it,” he mentally explained, “goodness knows. But it’s sickening to be told at every turn “ Hullo! old man—not down yet? No fear, you look too well. Ami the consequence is,” grumbled Mr Johns, “ I’m worked to death. There is the office boy so weak he can hardly stand. How can I ask him to run messages? There’s one clerk going about like a ghost, and another like a skeleton. How can I expect them before ten in the morning, and I should feel a brute if I kept them after four. But I shall have brainfag soon, and that’s worse than influenza.”

He grunted savagely as he inserted his latch key in his door, and entered what had once been a peaceful home. Peaceful no longer, Billy and Dolly were coughing loudly in one room, the baby wheezed in another, Jemima had gone home to be nursed, and the charwoman had sent a message, “Mother’s that bad she can’t stir.” His wife sneezed violently as she finished telling him this list of woes. “So Henry, dear (sneeze), you won’t mind it’s only being tea (a violent blowing of the nose), the cold mutton, love—(sneeze) —get it for yourself, there’s baby choking.” And he was left with a dismal apology for a fire alone in the dining room. But his revenge came early the next week. Returning from the office one evening he felt a. distinct shiver down his spine, and before he was fairly inside his own door he had sneezed at. least one and a-half times. “Louisa.” he groaned, as he staggered into the dining room, “I’m in for it," and ho sank exhausted on to the nearest chair. His wife, alarmed, forsook the baby, and bent over him, feeling his forehead and his hands. “Henry, are you feverish? Does your head ache? Where's the pain?” “ Everywhere,” moaned Mr Johns, “ but chiefly down my legs, and, ugh, I think my lungs —Ho coughed violently till the tears streamed from his eyes with the effort. “Don’t do that,” begged Louisa; “you’ll break a blood vessel.” “ I can’t help it,” he gurgled, “ I’ve been doing it all the afternoon ” —(at least, I shall be doing it all to-morrow afternoon, he corrected to himself). “ Get me to bed,” he advised.

Once in blankets, with steaming hot i whisky and lemons, ne felt indeed an in- ; valid; and practice making prefect, he ' coughed to such *an extent that he become. ; almost too hoarse to issue his orders. | “You must write a note to Goodman, ! Louisa, and tell him to come round here tomorrow on his way to the office. I don’t know how they’ll manage that affair of Lawson’s without me.” “Perhaps,” ventured his wife, “you’ll feel better to-morrow.” “ Better,” snapped Mr Johns; “ why woman, I may be delirious long before i this time to-morrow. Phew !” he threw off the blankets ; “ I’m in a raging fever ; already. You’d better take my temperaj ture at once. The thermometer was I fetched, and duly inserted under the sufferer’s tongue, and at the end of the regulation three minutes, and after a most ; careful scrutiny, Louisa pronounced the temperature normal. “I can’t believe it,” exclaimed Mr Johns; “you don’t know how to read it. Here, give it me again. Coughing as Ido so | incessantly, I expect I haven’t held it long | enough.” I Once more it was inserted, and this lime i left for live minutes. But, alas! it obstiI nately refused to stir beyond 98.4. I “ Father’s got no luck,” announced Billy, who had been forgotten to be put to bed I owing to the disorganised state of the household ; "mine went up to 105.” “ Louisa,” moaned the invalid, “ send that ! wretched boy out. How can you let me be tormented with the children ? It’s plain to see you’ve never really had influenza, or you’d know the state my nerves are in.”

Louisa tried to soothe him. “ The children will soon be all asleep, and after a 'good night's rest you——” ■’ Good night's rest,” almost shrieked Mr Johns; “why, 1 shan’t close an eyelid all night. How can I, racked with pain as I am ?” “Shall I send Jemima for a sleeping draught?” asked Louisa. “The chemist will be sure to know what you need ” “Ha. ha!” interrupted Mr Johns, with a bitter smile; “that’s it, is it? A chem- , ist’s haphazard prescription is enough for ' me. You and the children, of course. | must have a doctor. But anything will do for -your poor husband. Chemists.” added Mr Johns gloomily, “ have been known to send poison and overdoses by mistake. But never mind,” he went on, with a resigned air. “ I'd just as soon be out of the world as in it. This agony—it's affecting my heart now—ah ! What a stab! However, there’s the insurance. You’ll be ifil right. Give me a simple funeral——” And here, babbling of hearses ' and oak coffins, and begging Louisa somej times to remember him, Mr Johns sank I into unconsciousness. At least, that is how he afterwards described one of the symptoms of this attack. His wife was under the impression that he slept. Be that as it may, he returned to “ consciousness ”in the morning. “Very weak,” he said, and “very cross” his wife thought. “ What will you have for breakfast, dear?” she asked. “ Breakfast!” scowled Mr Johns ; “ you’re a poor nurse, Louisa. Don’t you know the first thing is to take my temperature?” This was instantly done, and the result was a point below normal.

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr Johns, with illconcealed triumph. “ I knew it—l felt it — I'm sinking. I think, now, Louisa, even you can hardly fail to perceive the necessity for a doctor.” So (he doctor was sent for, and after a hurried conversation with Mrs Johns in the hall was admitted to the sick chamber.

Dr Pillbox was a cheery, bustling man. always very fond of his joke. But ho knew when to be grave; and his face lengthened considerably as he listened to his patient’s account of his sufferings. He nodded his head slowly from time to time, and then proceeded to carefully examine him. He tapped him all over the chest and back, listened to his breathing, counted his pulse, pinched and kneaded his legs, and then straightening himself pronounced the verdict : “My dear sir, you are suffering from a complication—ahem ! —a complication of—several diseases.” Mr Johns started. “If it were merely influenza.” proceeded the doctor, “your pulse would be perhaps over a hundred. Your temperature would be—we'll say 101 to 102.2 degrees. The action of your heart would alter, and—and so on. Now. in your case all these particular symptoms are wanting, owing.” continued the doctor, impressively, “owing to the complication. At so early a. date 1 can hardly arrive at a correct diagnosis. Later in the day 1 may know better. For the present you must be keptvery quiet. No excitement, no worry of any kind. Light, nourishing diet .- a little stimulant ; and above all, my dear sir, rest, rest.” “A most able man," murmured Mr Johns, as the doctor drove away. “You see he understood my case at once. L do feel I require re«t and freedom frog*. Torn-. But

that’s not all. There’s still the complication. My poor Louisa, don’t cry. Yes, love; a beaten up egg, for I do feel very weak ; and—and don’t forget the whisky.” During the day the patient slept and dozed a great deal, but towards evening he became very restless, and his temper was what nurses describe as “fractious.” He objected to the boiled fish and milk pudding his wife brought him for his evening meal, and demanded curry and pickles. He worked himself into a rage because the doctor had not arrived before eight. “ Henry,’ said his wife, in an unguarded moment, “ if you go on like this you’ll have a real illness.”

“ Real illness!” almost screamed Mr Johns. “ Why, I've got a complication; what more do you want?” “I forgot." stammered Louisa. “ Oh. the heartlessness of woman!” stormed Mr Johns ; “if only you suffered as I do. My pulse, I’m sure,'is nearly a thousand.” Here the arrival of the doctor happily somewhat calmed him. “ I’m very bad, doctor,” he groaned, sinking back on his tumbled pillows. “My breathing—and those pains ” “ Hum,” said the doctor, taking the sufferer’s wrist between his fingers and pulling out his watch. “ One —two—three. Hah, your pulse is—too regular, if you understand, considering the circumstances. Temperature still normal? Very strange —most remarkable. I don’t altogether like that. You’ve a pain in your head, jou say—and elsewhere?” “ I have,” admitted Mr Johns. “ I'm afraid I’m going to be seriously ill. Do you think a consultation ” ”As to that,” answered the doctor, striving to hide his emotion by turning aside his head. “ Excuse me for one moment. I have left my stethoscope in the next room.” ****** “ Father,” said Hilly the next day, "you’ve got a complication, haven't you?” “My son,” moaned Mr Johns, “T believe so.” V I know you have,” announced Billy, triumphantly. “I heard mother say to the doctor the first time he came: ‘You must find something wrong with him.’ And the doctor said: ‘1 shall say it’s a complication.’ What's, that, father?” For answer Mr Johns threw a pillow at his offspring. “ Yes,” he said the following day, when, to the surprise and discomfiture of his clerks he turned up at the office at the usual time. “ Yes,” it’s been a short, sharp attack. No, not the ordinary influenza ; I had other symptoms. In fact, I had a complication.”—“ Honor Bright,” in the ‘ Leader.’