100%: the Story of a Patriot

Section 8

Section 8There was once, so legend declares, a darky who said that heliked to stub his toe because it felt so good when it stoppedhurting. On this same principle Peter had a happy timein thehospital of the American City jail. He had a comfortable bed, andplenty to eat, and absolutely nothing to do. His sore joints becamegradually healed, and he gained half a pound a day in weight, andhis busy mind set to work to study the circumstances about him, tofind out how he could perpetuate these comfortable conditions, andadd to them the little luxuries which make life really worthliving.

In charge of this hospital was an old man by the name ofDoobman. He had been appointed because he wasthe uncle of analderman, and he had held the job for the last six years, andduring that time had gained weight almost as rapidly as Peter wasgaining. He had now come to a condition where he did not like toget out of his armchair if it could be avoided. Peter discoveredthis, and so found it possible to make himself useful in smallways. Also Mr. Doobman had a secret vice; he took snuff, and forthe sake of discipline he did not want this dreadful fact to becomeknown. Therefore he would wait until everybody’s back wasturned before he took a pinch of snuff; and Peter learned this, andwould tactfully turn his back.

Everybody in this hospital had some secret vice, and it was Mr.Doobman’s duty to repress the vices of the others. Theinmates of the hospital included many of the prisoners who hadmoney, and could pay to make themselves comfortable. They wantedtobacco, whiskey, cocaine and other drugs, and some of them wanteda chance to practice unnamable horrors. All the money they couldsmuggle in they were ready to spend for license to indulgethemselves. As for the attendants in the hospital, they were allpolitical appointees, derelicts who had been unable to hold a jobin the commercial world, and had sought an easy berth, like Peterhimself. They took bribes, and were prepared to bribe Peter tooutwit Mr. Doobman; Mr. Doobman, on the other hand, was prepared toreward Peter with many favors, if Peter would consent to bring himsecret information. In such a situation it was possible for a manwith hiswits about him to accumulate quite a little capital.

For the most part Peter stuck by Doobman; having learned bybitter experience that in the long run it pays to be honest.Doobman was referred to by the other attendants as the “OldMan”; and always in Peter’s life, from the very dawn ofchildhood, there had been some such “Old Man,” thefountain-head of authority, the dispenser of creature comforts.First had been “Old Man” Drubb, who from early morninguntil late at night wore green spectacles, and a sign across hischest, “I am blind,” and made a weary little child leadhim thru the streets by the hand. At night, when they got home totheir garret-room, “Old Man” Drubb would take off hisgreen goggles, and was perfectly able to see Peter, and if Peterhad made the slightest mistake during the day he would beathim.

When Drubb was arrested, Peter was taken to the orphan asylum,and there was another “Old Man,” and the same harshlesson of subservience to be learned. Peter had run away from theasylum; andthen had come Pericles Priam with his Pain Paralyzer,and Peter hadstudied his whims and served his interests. WhenPericles had married a rich widow and she had kicked Peter out,there had come the Temple of Jimjambo, where the “OldMan” had been TushbarAkrogas, the major-domo—terriblewhen he was thwarted, but a generous dispenser of favors when onceyou had learned to flatter him, to play upon his weaknesses, tosmooth the path of his pleasures. All these years Peter had beenforced to “crook the pregnant hinges of the knee”; ithad become an instinct with him—an instinct that went backfar behind the twenty years of his conscious life, that went backtwenty thousand years, perhaps ten times twenty thousand years, toa time when Peter had chipped flintspear-heads at the mouth of somecave, and broiled marrow-bones for some “Old Man” ofthe borde, and seen rebellious young fellows cast out to fall preyto the sabre-tooth tiger.