Puck — April 2, 1879 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

60 PUCK. Capt, M'Gregor takes a Russian bath PTAIN M’'GRE- GOR felt hipped. Itis not often that Captain M’Gregor is hipped; butwhen he is, his diaphragm makes a Highland foray on his liver, and there is a sad and serious Gael in Captain M’Gregor’s breeks. On this particular Sunday morning, Captain M’Gregor’s tumbler of whushkey stood untasted by his elbow; his empty pipe reposed cold and uninspired in its morocco case. His prodi- gious labors at the billiard-table, combined with an exhaustive cold, had told upon him. And he felt bad. While in this condition, he suddenly be- thought himself of a long-standing invitation which he had had from his old friend, Dr. Ryan, to make a trial of his Russian Baths, which had been warmly recommended as a vigorous pick- me-up. “Aweel, aweel, a’ll take a Rooshan bath,” said the noble Captain, stretching his manly limbs; ‘noo a’ mind me, a’ hanna washit sin a’ went doun to Portobello in the year ’73—or— am a’ wrong ? was't na 63?” Leaving it to posterity to solve this important question, Captain M’Gregor made his toilet for the street. lt was a simple process, consisting merely of an airy movement of his brawny fingers through the warm-hued locks, whose luxuriance had suffered some slight abatement at the hand of jealous time. This done, it was not ten minutes ere Captain M’Gregor found himself at No. 18 Lafayette Place, where his friend, the real and original Day and Night Commander of the Bath, hangs out, and administers Turkish Delight to the million by means of the Russian Bath. Need it be said that the illustrious visitor was received with enthusiasm? Had Ulysses himself, fresh from roaming hungry-hearted round the globe, dropped in, he could not have created a greater sensation, After spending a brief time in the gorgeously furnished reception-room, Captain M’Gregor resigned himself to the guidance of his friend the Doc- tor, and, as he went through the opera tion of disrobing, he gazed with some slight apprehension through an open door, which seemed the entrance to a vaporous Inferno, wherein the embod- ied spirits of the damned were sweat- ing out their sins. They did not look exactly comfortable, the aforesaid spirits; but like the boy who was spaned, they were perhaps able to console themselves with the reflection that it was all for their good. “Hoot, mon,” said the Captain to himself, “‘wull there be much of Sandy M’Gregor left whan yon bilin’ feenished ?” Cheered, however, by the sight of a ponderous gentleman of the Mosaic dispensation, who was re- moving his linen with the cheerful air of a man who has nothing to fear and much to hope, Captain M’Gregor resigned him- self to his fate, and, following Mr. Albert Weber, the re- nowned artist in pianos, whose presence gave a tone to the Ryan establishment, found him- self very shortly in an atmo- sphere somewhat warmer than he had just left. In short, he was in what may be called the Tepid room, though why Tepid when the thermometer regis- ters ros, the Captain could not say. Clothed in his bland- est smile and nothing else to speak of, he stood like Patience S on a monument, while an attendant played on him with all the grace and skill of amember of the N. Y. Fire Depart- ment, consoling himself for the strange rigors of his treatment by con- templating awell known Doctor of Divinity, a regular habitué of the Baths, who was pla- i cidly | rising and falling, borne on the bosom of a ver- tical touche, like the silver-ball in a fountain jet, smil- ing sweetly as one who Deems him- selfsure ofheavenly bliss —a Christian edition of Maho- met’s paradise, = But before long the Doctor of Divinity was shut out from the Captain's eyes by a cloud of steam, under which genial influence the ( ( warrior felt his inter- nal wretchedness gra- dually oozing out of him, Having now be- come ‘‘sorter” of ac- climatized, the dis- tinguished visitor was next conducted through admiring crowds to the scrub- bing room, where he was generally and parti- cularly rubbed down and up and up and down, ae sey é 2° i. yp (Samuel Carpenter, the Pennsylvania R. R. Fiend.) and round about, ‘until his polished limbs glowed and shone like burnished brass. Then followed a cold douche and another scrub, after which he passed into the sanctum sanclorum, the Vapor room, through the thick hot steam (Yuengling as an Enemy of Hydrophobia.) of which the white forms of the bathers could be discerned dim and ghostlike as Acherontic shades, ‘Then, after an incidental deluge, Captain M’Gregor passed into the dripping room, where his equanimity was for the first time seri- ously disturbed. “Scots wha ha’ wi’ Wallace bled!” yelled the Captain, “ be- waur me wrath gin A’ get ma twa fisties loose—A'll rend ye leemb from leemb! Wad ye roob a’ the skin off amon?” But five minutes after, ———= stretched out at full length, and softly sham- pooed, the valiant son of Mars forgot his anger, as he felt a luscious sense of cleanly calm steal over all his being. Renewed vitality as of the Elixir of Life thrilled through his veins; and as he sipped his café noir and smoked his mo- dest cigarette he felt like a god on Olympus. Owing to circumstances into which it is unnec- cessary to enter, he did not trouble either the barber or the chiropodist, though both were in attendance, and ev- idently well patron- ized. And finally, having rehabilitat- ed himself, Captain M’Gregor reénter- ed the reception room and once more revelled in the luxury of a delicious and final lounge, to the accompani- ment of another cigarette and acafé noir. And then, erect and joyful, the Scot- tish chieftain departed from Dr, Ryan’s halls of bliss, marking: “Noo A’m a mon agin. A’'m like Acheelles dippit in the Styx, savin’ A’ve ne’er a dom’d sore spot on ma heel, Whoop, laddies, what a dee we're havin!” comicbooks.com