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Yet here at his sanitarium are gathered representatives of those same orders, the so-called better element. And here we see them suddenly dominated, mind and soul, by this being whom they, theoretically at least, look upon as a brand to be snatched from the burning. "As the Church and society view Culhane, so they view all life outside their own immediate circles.
Culhane?" he asked crisply. "Yes." "I am Mr. Squiers," he exclaimed. "I wired you from Buffalo and ordered a room," this last with an irritated wave of the hand. "Oh, no, you didn't order any room," replied the host sourly and with an obvious desire to show his indifference and contempt even. "You wired to know if you could engage a room." He paused. The temperature seemed to drop perceptibly.
And all the while Culhane would be sitting out front like an army captain on the only decent steed in the place, eyeing us with a look of infinite and weary contempt that served to increase our troubles a thousandfold. "Well, you're all on, are you? You all do it so gracefully I like to sit here and admire you.
Culhane, although tucking up his lines and stiffening his back irritably at this flaw, said nothing. For after all a poor trumpeter was better than none at all. A little later, however, the trumpeter having hesitated to begin again, he called back, "Well, what about the horn? What about the horn? Can't you do something with it? Have you quit for the day?"
The major, as I learned afterwards, stayed not six but twelve weeks and passed the tests which permitted him to remain in the army. But to return to Culhane himself. The latter's method always contained this element of nag and pester which, along with his brazen reliance on and pride in his brute strength at sixty, made all these others look so puny and ineffectual.
The animal was inclined to rear and plunge when he came near, to fix him with an evil eye and bite at him. And above all things Culhane seemed to value strain of this kind. If he could just make his guests feel the pressure of necessity in connection with their work he was happy. To this end he would employ the most contemptuous and grilling comment. Thus to Mr. Itzky he was most unkind.
"Pah!" exclaimed the bather now, looking twice as ridiculous as before. "I'm not used to having such language addressed to me." "I can't help that," said Culhane. "If you knew how to wash your toes perhaps you wouldn't have to have such language addressed to you." "Oh, hell!" fumed the other. "This is positively outrageous! I'll leave the place, by George!"
Culhane is in fact a conspicuous figure among the semi-taboo. He has been referred to in many an argument and platform and pulpit and in the press as a type of man whose influence is supposed to be vitiating.
Most of them had already seen so much of life in a libertine way that there was little left to enjoy. They sniffed at almost everything, Culhane included, and yet they were obviously drawn to him.
It was positively dreadful, the wheezing, grinding sounds that were emitted. "God!" shouted Culhane, pulling up the coach to a dead stop. "Stop that! Whoa! Whoa!!! Do you mean to say that that's the best you can do? Well, this finishes me! Whoa! What kind of a bunch of cattle have I got up here, anyhow? Whoa! And out in this country too where I'm known and where they know all about such things!
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