“never again! You … you must learn that in this life sometimes even aristocrats let slip an unfortunate phrase in moments of stress. It does not behoove us to imitate them.”
I did see what Kralefsky meant. Falling into a canal, for a count, could be called a moment of stress, I supposed.
But the saga of the count was not yet over. A week or so after he had departed, Larry, one morning at breakfast, confessed to feeling unwell. Mother put on her glasses and stared at him critically.
“How do you mean, unwell?” she asked.
“Not my normal, manly, vigorous self,” said Larry.
“Have you got any pains?” asked Mother.
“No,” Larry admitted, “no actual pains. Just a sort of lassitude, a feeling of ennui, a debilitated, drained feeling, as if I had spent the night with Count Dracula; and I feel that, for all his faults, our late guest was not a vampire.”
“Well, you look all right,” said Mother, “though we’d better get you looked at. Dr. Androccelli is on holiday, so I’ll have to get Spiro to bring Theodore.”
“All right,” said Larry listlessly, “and you’d better tell Spiro to nip in and alert the British cemetery.”
“Larry, don’t say things like that,” said Mother, getting alarmed. “Now, you go up to bed and, for heaven’s sake, stop there.”
If Spiro could be classified as our guardian angel to whom no request was impossible of fulfillment, Dr. Theodore Stephanides was our oracle and guide to all things. He arrived, sitting sedately in the back of Spiro’s Dodge, immaculately dressed in a tweed suit, his homburg at just the correct angle, his beard twinkling in the sun.
“Yes, it was really … um … very curious,” said Theodore, having greeted us all, “I was just thinking to myself how nice a trip … that is to say, a spin in the country would be as it … er … was an especially beautiful day … um … not too hot, and that sort of thing, you know … er … and suddenly Spiro turned up at the laboratory. Most fortuitous.”
“I’m so glad that my agony is of some benefit to someone,” said Larry.
“Aha! What … er … you know … seems to be the trouble?” asked Theodore, eyeing Larry with interest.
“Nothing concrete,” Larry admitted, “just a general feeling of death being very imminent. All my strength seems to have drained away. I’ve probably, as usual, been giving too much of myself to my family.”
“I don’t think that’s what’s wrong with you,” said Mother decisively.
“I think you’ve been eating too much,” said Margo. “What you want is a good diet.”
“What he wants is a little fresh air and exercise,” said Leslie. “If he took the boat out a bit …”
“Yes, well, Theodore will tell us what’s wrong,” said Mother.
Theodore examined Larry and reappeared in half an hour’s time.
“I can’t find anything … er … you know … organically wrong,” said Theodore judiciously, rising and falling on his tiptoes, “except that he is perhaps a trifle overweight.”
“There you are! I told you he needed a diet,” said Margo triumphantly.
“Hush, dear,” said Mother. “So what do you advise, Theodore?”
“I should keep him in bed for a day or so,” said Theodore. “Give him a light diet, you know, nothing very oily, and I’ll send out some medicine … er … that is to say … a tonic for him. I’ll come out the day after tomorrow and see how he is.”
Spiro drove Theodore back to town and in due course reappeared with the medicine.
“I won’t drink it,” said Larry, eyeing the bottle askance, “it looks like essence of bat’s ovaries.”
“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Mother, pouring some into a spoon, “it will do you good.”
“It won’t,” said Larry. “It’s the same stuff that my friend Dr. Jekyll took, and look what happened to him.”
“What happened to him?” asked Mother, unthinkingly.
“They found him hanging from the chandelier, scratching himself and saying he was Mr. Hyde.”
“Come on now, Larry, stop fooling about,” said Mother firmly.
With much fussing, Larry was prevailed upon to take the medicine and retire to bed.
The following morning we were all woken at an inordinately early hour by roars of rage coming from Larry’s room.
“Mother! Mother!” he was roaring. “Come and look what you’ve done!”
We found him prancing around his room, naked, a large mirror in one hand. He turned on Mother belligerently, and she gasped at the sight of him. His face was swollen up to about twice normal size and was the approximate color of a tomato.
“What have you been doing, dear?” asked Mother faintly.
“Doing? It’s what you’ve done,” he shouted, articulating with difficulty. “You and bloody Theodore and your damned medicine. It’s affected my pituitary. Look at me! It’s worse than Jekyll and Hyde.”
Mother put on her spectacles and gazed at Larry.
“It looks to me as though you’ve got mumps,” she said, puzzled.
“Nonsense! That’s a child’s disease,” said Larry impatiently. “No, it’s that damned medicine of Theodore’s. I tell you, it’s affected my pituitary. If you don’t get the antidote straight away, I shall grow into a giant.”
“Nonsense, dear, I’m sure it’s mumps,” said Mother, “but it’s very funny, because I’m sure you’ve had mumps. Let’s see, Margo had measles in Darjeeling in 1920 … Leslie had sprue in Rangoon – no, I’m wrong, that was 1900 in Rangoon and you had sprue. Then Leslie had chicken pox in Bombay in 1911 … or was it 12? I can’t quite remember. And then you had your tonsils out in Rajaputana in 1922, or it may have been 1923, I can’t remember exactly, and then after that, Margo got – ”
“I hate to interrupt this Old Moore’s Almanac of Family Ailments,” said Larry coldly, “but would somebody like to send for the antidote before I get so big I can’t leave the room?”
Theodore, when he appeared, agreed with Mother’s diagnosis.
“Yes … er … um … clearly a case of mumps,” he said.
“What do you mean, clearly, you charlatan?” said Larry, glaring at him from watering and swollen eyes. “Why didn’t you know what it was yesterday? And anyhow, I can’t get mumps, it’s a child’s disease.”
“No,
