Excerpt
“I strongly advise you to believe nothing that you hear," Mr. Poe, "and only half of what you see, in regard to you assessing the avant-garde Maison de Sante. Whatever you do,” the rather strange superintendent cautioned me, “don’t be misled by the false teachings of those medical ignoramuses over in Paris! Now then; I’ll show you the gardens and the conservatories, and next we’ll have a delicious dinner after six.”
“Mr. Maillard, where the hell are your patients?” I inquired. “I haven’t seen one of them since I’ve been here.”
“Oh, they’re meandering around here, somewhere,” the chief administrator obtusely answered. “I’m sure they’re hiding from us somewhere in the dense outside foliage, or perhaps playing Hide and Seek behind sofas and chairs, just to break our stones!”
And before I could explore the next uncultivated garden and weed area, I heard around twenty zany voices all zestfully yelling-out in unison, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” in a queer dissonant cacophony, sounding much like some sort of out-of-control, lunatic, community chicken coop.