It hurt him somewhat, but that made no difference, as we hired him by the day and paid his expenses.
In one corner a lot of fellows were sitting on the floor and softening the asperities of the bath by singing an Arab air. Mohammed said they were soldiers, but there wasn’t one of them with any more uniform than we wore, and certainly ours was very scanty. We looked and listened, perspired and waited, and just as the place began to seem comfortable the attendants led us into another room compared to which the first was a refrigerator. It was frightfully hot and took away the breath, and if I had considered myself a free moral agent I would have backed out.
Gustave thought he would sit down, and seeing a block of marble through the steamy atmosphere, he went for it. Before the attendant knew what he was about Gustave had taken a seat.
My duty to the moral and religious public requires the omission of the remarks of my friend immediately subsequent to his assumption of the sitting posture. They were made in German, English, and French, and were brief and emphatic. { 299}What he supposed to be a block of stone proved to be a marble tub filled with water. The temperature was sufficiently elevated to cause him to howl with pain, but it did no real damage.
We squatted in a group on the floor after lifting Gustave from his tub, and there we sat puffing and perspiring for some ten minutes or more. Then my attendant laid me on a stone bench and put me through what is called the “shampoo.” He squeezed, and rubbed and pulled and pounded till I was as limp as a boned turkey and possessed as much consistency as a jelly fish. I expected to spread out and run over the sides of the bench and I took a glance downward to see if there was danger of running off through the waste pipes. I called faintly to Mohammed, and heard a husky “Monsieur” in response.
“Have the goodness,” I said, “to ask this gentleman to put me in a sack if he wants to rub me any more. Any sack with small meshes will do, but I want it tight enough to keep me together.
“And Mohammed,” I added, “if there is a rolling mill or a wire-drawing establishment handy he could facilitate matters by running me through it, and then”--