“We are extremely full,” announced the polite Herr to Dr. MELCHISIDEC; “and we just come from finishing the second dinner,”—­which seemed to account for his being “extremely full,”—­“but as soon as you will descend from your rooms, there will be supper ready at your disposition.”

“You’ll just come and look at the Bath-chair before you turn in?” inquired Dr. MELCHISIDEC, of the Dilapidated One, “It’s arrived all right from Zurich.  Come by post, apparently.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” continued young JERRYMAN, “why, there’s nothing you can’t send by post in Switzerland, from a house full of furniture, down to a grand piano or cage of canaries.  You’ve only got to clap a postage-stamp on it, and there you are!” And the arrival of the Bath-chair certainly seemed to indicate that he was telling something very like the truth.

[Illustration:  The Trick Chair.]

“I don’t quite see how this guiding-wheel is to act,” remarked Dr. MELCHISIDEC, examining the chair, which was of rather pantomimic proportions, critically; “but suppose you just get in and try it!  ’Pon my word it almost looks like a ’trick-chair’!” which indeed it proved itself to be, jerking up in a most unaccountable fashion the moment the Dilapidated One put his foot into it, and unceremoniously sending him flying out on to his head forthwith.  “A little awkward at first,” he remarked, assisting the Dilapidated One on to his feet.  “One has to get accustomed to these things, you see; but, bless you, in a day or two you won’t want it at all.  You’ll find the air here like a continual draught of champagne.  ’Pon my word, I believe you feel better already,” and with this inspiriting assurance the Dilapidated One, who had not only covered himself with dust, but severely bruised his shins, saying that “he thought, perhaps, he did—­just a little,” was again assisted to the lift, and safely consigned to his room, where he was comfortably packed away for the night.

“I say,” says young JERRYMAN, next morning, “what a place for bells!”

[Illustration:  A Peripatetic Peal.]

And young JERRYMAN was right, for I was awoke in the small hours of the morning by a loud peal from the Monastery, as if the Prior had suddenly said to himself, “What’s the use of the bells if you don’t ring ’em?  By Jove, I will!” and had then and there jumped from his couch, seized hold of the ropes, and set to work with a right good will.  Then the hotels and pensions took it up, and so, what with seven o’clock, eight o’clock, and nine o’clock breakfasts, first and second dejeuners, first and second dinners, interspersed with “Office Hours” sounded by the Monastery, and the sound of the dinner-bells carried by the cattle, Dingle-berg, rather than Engelberg, would be a highly appropriate name for this somewhat noisy, but otherwise delightful health-resort.

“I call this ‘fatal dull’ after Paris,” remarked a fair Americaine to young JERRYMAN; and, perhaps, from a certain point of view, she may have been right; but, fatal dull, or lively, there can be no two opinions about the life-giving properties of the air.