Part 14 (1/2)

”A dinner of herbs-the sentiment applies equally to lunch-and contentment therewith is better,” I said, ”than a stalled ox.”

”Don't talk about oxen,” he interrupted fretfully. ”I feel I could just eat one-a plump one.”

There is a man I know. I confess he irritates me. His argument is that you should always rise from a meal feeling hungry. As I once explained to him, you cannot rise from a meal feeling hungry without sitting down to a meal feeling hungry; which means, of course, that you are always hungry. He agreed with me. He said that was the idea-always ready.

”Most people,” he said, ”rise from a meal feeling no more interest in their food. That was a mental att.i.tude injurious to digestion. Keep it always interested; that was the proper way to treat it.”

”By 'it' you mean . . . ?” I said.

”Of course,” he answered; ”I'm talking about it.”

”Now I myself;” he explained-”I rise from breakfast feeling eager for my lunch. I get up from my lunch looking forward to my dinner. I go to bed just ready for my breakfast.”

Cheerful expectancy, he said, was a wonderful aid to digestion. ”I call myself;” he said, ”a cheerful feeder.”

”You don't seem to me,” I said, ”to be anything else. You talk like a tadpole. Haven't you any other interest in life? What about home, and patriotism, and Shakespeare-all those sort of things? Why not give it a square meal, and silence it for an hour or two; leave yourself free to think of something else.”

”How can you think of anything,” he argued, ”when your stomach's out of order?”

”How can you think of anything,” I argued, ”when it takes you all your time to keep it in order? You are not a man; you are a nurse to your own stomach.” 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 gla.s.s of Apenta water at times when you don't want it, a.s.suming 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. d.i.c.k seemed impressed.

”Nice sort of man?” he asked.

”An earnest man,” I replied. ”He practises what he preaches, and whether because, or in spite of it, the fact remains that a chirpier soul I am sure does not exist.”

”Married?” demanded d.i.c.k.

”A single man,” I answered. ”In all things an idealist. He has told me he will never marry until he can find his ideal woman.”

”What about Robina here!” suggested d.i.c.k. ”Seem to have been made for one another.”

Robina smiled. It was a wan, pathetic smile.

”Even he,” thought Robina, ”would want his beans cooked to time, and to feel that a reasonable supply of nuts was always in the house. We incompetent women never ought to marry.”

We had finished the bacon. d.i.c.k said he would take a stroll into the town. Robina suggested he might take Veronica with him, that perhaps a bun and a gla.s.s of milk would do the child no harm.

Veronica for a wonder seemed to know where all her things were. Before d.i.c.k had filled his pipe she was ready dressed and waiting for him.

Robina said she would give them a list of things they might bring back with them. She also asked d.i.c.k to get together a plumber, a carpenter, a bricklayer, a glazier, and a civil engineer, and to see to it that they started off at once. She thought that among them they might be able to do all that was temporarily necessary, but the great thing was that the work should be commenced without delay.