If you expect me to ask you to
stay I'll not do it. I don't mind saying that I am as tired of all this
as you are."
"As tired of what?" demanded Mr. Moody, pushing forward out of the
crowd. Mr. Sam was making frantic gestures to catch Mr. Pierce's eye,
but he would not look at him.
"Of all this," he said. "Of charging people sanatorium prices under a
pretense of making them well. Does anybody here imagine he's going to
find health by sitting around in an overstuffed leather chair, with the
temperature at eighty, eating five meals a day, and walking as far as
the mineral spring for exercise?"
There was a sort of angry snarl in the air, and Mr. Sam threw up his one
free hand in despair.
"In fact," Mr. Pierce went on, "I'd about decided on a new order of
things for this place anyhow. It's going to be a real health resort,
run for people who want to get well or keep well. People who wish to be
overfed, overheated and coddled need not come--or stay."
The bishop spoke over the heads of the others, who looked dazed.
"Does that mean," he inquired mildly, "that--guests must either obey
this new order of things or go away?"
Mr. Pierce looked at the bishop and smiled.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but as every one is leaving, anyhow--"
They fairly jumped at him then. They surrounded him in a howling mob and
demanded how he dared to turn them out, and what did he mean by saying
they were overfed, and they would leave when they were good and ready
and not before, and he could go to blazes.
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