The next morning when there was more leisure for Beelzy the Baron inquired as to the state of his health.
"Oh it's been pretty good," said he. "Pretty good. I'm all right now, barrin' a little gout in my right foot, and ice-water on my knee, an' a crick in my back, an' a tired feelin' all over me generally. Ain't had much to complain about. Had the measles in December, and the mumps in February; an' along about the middle o' May the whoopin' cough got a holt of me; but as it saved my life I oughtn't to kick about that."
Here Beelzy looked gratefully at an invisible something--doubtless the recollection in the thin air of his departed case of whooping cough, for having rescued him from an untimely grave.
"That is rather curious, isn't it?" queried Sapphira, gazing intently into the boy's eyes. "I don't exactly understand how the whooping cough could save anybody's life, do you, Mr. Munchausen?"
"Beelzy, this lady would have you explain the situation, and I must confess that I am myself somewhat curious to learn the details of this wonderful rescue," said Mr. Munchausen.
"Well, I must say," said Beelzy, with a pleased smile at the very great consequence of his exploit in the lady's eyes, "if I was a-goin' to start out to save people's lives generally I wouldn't have thought a case o' whoopin' cough would be of much use savin' a man from drownin', and I'm sure if a feller fell out of a balloon it wouldn't help him much if he had ninety dozen cases o' whoopin' cough concealed on his person; but for just so long as I'm the feller that has to come up here every June, an' shoo the bears out o' the hotel, I ain't never goin' to be without a spell of whoopin' cough along about that time if I can help it. I wouldn't have been here now if it hadn't been for it."
"You referred just now," said Sapphira, "to shooing bears out of the hotel. May I inquire what useful function in the ménage of a hotel a bear-shooer performs?"
"Function--duty--what does the duty of a bear-shooer consist in?" explained Mr. Munchausen. "Is he a blacksmith who shoes bears instead of horses?"
"He's a bear-chaser," explained Beelzy, "and I'm it," he added. "That, Ma'am, is the function of a bear-shooer in the menagerie of a hotel."