The Night Watch Read Free

box of matches and striking a light: all perfectly easily and naturally with one hand, while the other, undeveloped, arm hung at his side.
    Why did he come, Duncan always wondered, when he could get along so well just as he was? He thought that perhaps the young man wanted a sweetheart; for of course, the arm was something a girl might object to.
    The young man tucked the box of matches back into his pocket and went on his way. Mr Leonard led Duncan and Mr Mundy upstairs-going slowly, of course; letting Mr Mundy set the pace.
    'Blinking nuisance,' said Mr Mundy, embarassed. 'What can you do with me? Put me on the scrap heap.'
    'Now, now!' said Mr Leonard.
    He and Duncan helped Mr Mundy into the treatment room. They lowered him into another hard-backed chair, took his jacket from him, made sure he was comfortable. Mr Leonard got out a black notebook and looked briefly inside it; then he sat facing Mr Mundy in a stiff chair of his own. Duncan went to the window and sat on a low sort of padded box that was there, with Mr Mundy's jacket in his lap. The window had a bitter-smelling net curtain across it, slightly sagging from a wire. The walls of the room were done in lincrusta, painted a glossy chocolate brown.
    Mr Leonard rubbed his hands together. 'So,' he said. 'How are we, since I saw you last?'
    Mr Mundy ducked his head. 'Not too bright,' he said.
    'The idea of pains, still?'
    'Can't seem to shake them off at all.'
    'But you've had no resort to false remedies of any kind?'
    Mr Mundy moved his head again, uneasily. 'Well,' he admitted after a second, 'perhaps a little aspirin.'
    Mr Leonard drew in his chin and looked ar Mr Mundy as if to say: Dear, dear . 'Now, you know very well, don't you,' he said, 'what a person is like, who employs false remedies and Spiritual treatment at the same time? He is like an ass pulled by two masters; he moves nowhere. You do know this, don't you?'
    'It's only,' said Mr Mundy, 'so awfully sore-'
    'Soreness!' said Mr Leonard, with a mixture of amusement and great contempt. He shook his chair. 'Is this chair sore, because it must support my weight? Why not, since the wood from which it is made is as material as the bone and muscle of your leg, which you say hurts from bearing your weight? It is because nobody believes that a chair may hurt. If you will only not believe in the hurt of your leg, that leg will become as negligible to you as wood is. Don't you know this?'
    'Yes,' said Mr Mundy meekly.
    'Yes,' repeated Mr Leonard. 'Now, let us make a start.'
    Duncan sat very still. It was necessary to be very still and quiet through all of the session, but particularly now, while Mr Leonard was gathering his thoughts, gathering his strength, concentrating his mind so that he might be ready to take on the false idea of Mr Mundy's arthritis. He did this by slightly putting back his head and looking with great intensity, not at Mr Mundy, but at a picture he had hung over the mantelpiece, of a soft-eyed woman in a high-necked Victorian gown, who Duncan knew to be the founder of Christian Science, Mrs Mary Baker Eddy. On the black frame of the picture someone-possibly Mr Leonard himself-had written a phrase, not very handily, in enamel paint. The phrase was: Ever Stand Porter at the Gate of Thought .
    The words made Duncan want to laugh, every time: not because he found them especially comical, but simply because to laugh, just now, would be so dreadful; and he always, at this point, began to grow panicked at the thought of having to sit so silently, for so long: he felt he would be bound to make some sound, some movement-leap up, start shrieking, throw a fit… But it was too late. Mr Leonard had changed his pose-had leaned forward and fixed Mr Mundy with his gaze. And when he spoke again, he spoke in a whisper, intently, with a tremendous sense of urgency and belief.
    'Dear Horace,' he said, 'you must listen to me. All that you think about your arthritis is untrue. You have no arthritis. You have no