A BOUT a week later, Colonel Dabney reported, with a favorable recommendation to the House, from the Committee on Public Property, “An Act restoring a certain amputated limb in the Medical Museum to Major Henry G. Dunwoody.” The Act specified the leg contained in Exhibit 1307, Case 25, as the property to be restored.
When the bill came up for discussion, General Belcher moved to lay it upon the table. Defeated. Then he moved to amend it with a provision that the bone of the leg should be withdrawn and retained in the Museum. Rejected. Then he offered a resolution referring the whole matter to a committee of inquiry, which should be directed to sit for two years, and to take testimony as to what had been the practice of governments in the matter of surrendering legs blown off in battle, from the time of Sennacherib down to the battle of Sedan, including evidence respecting the custom in Persia, Greece, Egypt, Rome, Carthage, Palestine, and modern Europe. After a spirited debate the resolution was lost. But the General was not287 discouraged. He presented another resolution, that a special committee be directed to inquire whether the person mentioned in this bill was the same Major Dunwoody who, in a fit of alcoholic frenzy, in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, in 1866, treed his aged grandfather one rainy night, and compelled that venerable and rheumatic person to roost upon a lofty branch until morning. Voted down: Yeas 304; Nays 1 (General Belcher).
The bill finally passed to a third reading, and was adopted. When it had received the approval of the Senate and the President, Major Dunwoody drove round to the Museum in high glee with Pandora. He carried in his pocket an empty pillow-case, in which he proposed to take home with him the long-lost fragment of himself. When he found the janitor and presented his credentials, that official was exceedingly polite, and at once led the way to the place where the treasure was kept.
While he was unlocking the case, Pandora could hardly repress her feelings of joy. Leaning upon her lover’s arm, and watching the janitor, she exclaimed,—
“Isn’t it elegant, dear? I can hardly realize that we are really going to get it! Mother will be so glad when George Washington has his other leg on.”
“I wish I had my other one on,” said the Major, pleasantly.
288 “So do I. It’s too bad! But you can stand it up on the table and look at it now as much as you want to, can’t you, darling?”
The janitor lifted down the huge jar containing the limb, and took it out of the spirits.
“I feel,” said the Major, as he unfolded his pillow-case, “as if I was in a cemetery, disinterring one of my near relations.”
“So beautiful! Isn’t it?” said Pandora.
The Major suddenly scrutinized the leg closely.
“Why, how—how’s this? I don’t exactly understand—let’s see, janitor, this is Exhibit 1307? Yes. Case 25? Yes, Case 25; so it is. Why, Thunder and Mars! (excuse my agitation, Pandora,) there must be something wrong about this!”
“Wrong, Henry? How?”
“Guess not, sir,” said the janitor. “This is what the bill calls for.”
“But it can’t be, you know. I lost my left leg, and this one you had in the jar here is a right leg. I couldn’t have had two right legs, Pandora, of course!”
“I do not know, dear. Some persons have peculiarities of formation which—”
“Oh, well, now, be reasonable. I am absolutely certain that my leg was a left leg in every particular. You see, Pandora, this is a matter about which I may fairly be considered an authority.”
289 “Yes, Henry, but—but maybe being in the alcohol so long may have changed it.”
“Impossible. Quite impossible, Pandora. The annals of medical science, from Esculapius down, contain no record of such a thing. The leg is not mine.”
“But you might as well take it, dearest, mightn’t you, because my George Washington ought to be finished as quickly as possible?”
“You don’t want to put two right legs on him, too, do you?”
“I don’t know, Henry, I might. People won’t look at his toes; and if they did, they would regard the arrangement as one of the eccentricities of genius, perhaps.”
“Let us look about,” said the Major. “Perhaps my leg is in one of these other cases. Why, here it is! Sure enough! In Case 1236, Exhibit 11. That is mine. You’ll let me have it, Mr. Janitor, of course?”
“Can’t do it, sir; I have to follow the Act of Congress carefully. I daren’t go outside of it.”
“Well, this is too bad!” exclaimed the Major. “You positively won’t give it to me?”
“No, sir; I won’t.”
“Well, then, Pandora, there is nothing to do but to wait. I’ll get Colonel Dabney to put another bill through at once. Let me get the numbers: Exhibit 11, Case 1236.”
290 Then, taking Pandora upon his arm, the Major hobbled to his carriage and drove straight to the Capitol.
About three weeks later another bill passed the House without opposition, General Belcher being absent in New York upon a Committee of Inquiry. While the measure ............