" We were growing excited, both of us, forgetting
our natural refinement. "You don't get even your one afternoon a
week. You are healthy enough, I admit it. So are the convicts at
Portland. They never suffer from indigestion. I knew a doctor once
who prescribed for a patient two years' penal servitude as the only
thing likely to do him permanent good. Your stomach won't let you
smoke. It won't let you drink--not when you are thirsty. It allows
you a glass of Apenta water at times when you don't want it, assuming
there could ever be a time when you did want it. You are deprived of
your natural victuals, and made to live upon prepared food, as though
you were some sort of a prize chicken. You are sent to bed at
eleven, and dressed in hygienic clothing that makes no pretence to
fit you. Talk of being hen-pecked! Why, the mildest husband living
would run away or drown himself, rather than remain tied for the rest
of his existence to your stomach."
"It is easy to sneer," he said.
"I am not sneering," I said; "I am sympathising with you."
He said he did not want any sympathy. He said if only I would give
up over-eating and drinking myself, it would surprise me how bright
and intelligent I should become.
I thought this man might be of use to us on the present occasion.
Accordingly I spoke of him and of his theory. Dick seemed impressed.
"Nice sort of man?" he asked.
"An earnest man," I replied.
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