I
explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the
morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed; and
George stood on the hearth-rug, and gave us a clever and powerful piece
of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night.
George FANCIES he is ill; but there's never anything really the matter
with him, you know.
At this point, Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door to know if we were ready
for supper. We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had
better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little something in one's
stomach often kept the disease in check; and Mrs. Poppets brought the
tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little steak and
onions, and some rhubarb tart.
I must have been very weak at the time; because I know, after the first
half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever in my food - an
unusual thing for me - and I didn't want any cheese.
This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the
discussion upon our state of health. What it was that was actually the
matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous opinion
was that it - whatever it was - had been brought on by overwork.
"What we want is rest," said Harris.
"Rest and a complete change," said George. "The overstrain upon our
brains has produced a general depression throughout the system. Change
of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the
mental equilibrium."
George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet as a
medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary
way of putting things.
I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired
and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny
week among its drowsy lanes - some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by
the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world - some quaint-perched eyrie
on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth
century would sound far-off and faint.
Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He said he knew the sort of
place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and you
couldn't get a REFEREE for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to
get your baccy.
"No," said Harris, "if you want rest and change, you can't beat a sea
trip."
I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when you
are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is
wicked.
