III
Morning. As he awoke he perceived drowsily that
the room had at the same moment become dense with
sunlight. The ebony panels of one wall had slid aside
on a sort of track, leaving his chamber half open to the
day. A large negro in a white uniform stood beside his
bed.
"Good-evening," muttered John, summoning his
brains from the wild places.
"Good-morning, sir. Are you ready for your bath,
sir? Oh, don't get up—I'll put you in, if you'll just
unbutton your pajamas—there. Thank you, sir."
John lay quietly as his pajamas were removed—he
was amused and delighted; he expected to be lifted like
a child by this black Gargantua who was tending him,
but nothing of the sort happened; instead he felt the
bed tilt up slowly on its side—he began to roll, startled
at first, in the direction of the wall, but when he reached
the wall its drapery gave way, and sliding two yards
farther down a fleecy incline he plumped gently into
water the same temperature as his body.
He looked about him. The runway or rollway on
which he had arrived had folded gently back into place.
He had been projected into another chamber and was
sitting in a sunken bath with his head just above the
level of the floor. All about him, lining the walls of the
room and the sides and bottom of the bath itself, was a
blue aquarium, and gazing through the crystal surface
on which he sat, he could see fish swimming among
amber lights and even gliding without curiosity past
his outstretched toes, which were separated from them
only by the thickness of the crystal. From overhead,
sunlight came down through sea-green glass.
"I suppose, sir, that you'd like hot rosewater and
soapsuds this morning, sir—and perhaps cold salt water
to finish."
The negro was standing beside him.
"Yes," agreed John, smiling inanely, "as you please."
Any idea of ordering this bath according to his own
meagre standards of living would have been priggish
and not a little wicked.
The negro pressed a button and a warm rain began to
fall, apparently from overhead, but really, so John discovered
after a moment, from a fountain arrangement
near by. The water turned to a pale rose color and jets
of liquid soap spurted into it from four miniature walrus
heads at the corners of the bath. In a moment a
dozen little paddle-wheels, fixed to the sides, had churned
the mixture into a radiant rainbow of pink foam which
enveloped him softly with its delicious lightness, and
burst in shining, rosy bubbles here and there about him.
"Shall I turn on the moving-picture machine, sir?"
suggested the negro deferentially. "There's a good one-reel
comedy in this machine to-day, or I can put in a
serious piece in a moment, if you prefer it."
"No, thanks," answered John, politely but firmly.
He was enjoying his bath too much to desire any distraction.
But distraction came. In a moment he was
listening intently to the sound of flutes from just outside,
flutes dripping a melody that was like a waterfall,
cool and green as the room itself, accompanying a frothy
piccolo, in play more fragile than the lace of suds that
covered and charmed him.
After a cold salt-water bracer and a cold fresh finish,
he stepped out and into a fleecy robe, and upon a couch
covered with the same material he was rubbed with oil,
alcohol, and spice. Later he sat in a voluptuous chair
while he was shaved and his hair was trimmed.
"Mr. Percy is waiting in your sitting-room," said the
negro, when these operations were finished. "My name
is Gygsum, Mr. Unger, sir. I am to see to Mr. Unger
every morning."
John walked out into the brisk sunshine of his living-room,
where he found breakfast waiting for him and
Percy, gorgeous in white kid knickerbockers, smoking
in an easy chair.
