"You want to know what I think?" he said, turning to her severely. "Well, listen. I think Isadore will get well. I hope so. It wouldn't do any good to have him die. None of you people would read the lesson. But he don't deserve to. For ten years he's been violating all the rules of health regularly. You're all intelligent enough to understand some of Nature's laws, but you're too utterly light-minded to obey them! Isadore started out with a wonderful constitution and now is so run-down that an insignificant little typhoid germ gets into his mouth and nearly kills him. Good God. You all want to blame the germ. But they can't do any harm unless you're already sick--made yourself sick, as Isadore has. I'm not afraid of them--my business takes me right where they live. I'm as hard as nails. And you ought to see my kids. They're as sound as I am." "What do you mean by his making himself sick? Overwork?" "Overwork? Thunder! I don't get as much undisturbed sleep as he did. I've been 'overworking' longer than he has. Work doesn't hurt people--not if they are living sensibly. You people--all of you--are abnormal, almost hysterical, in your attitude towards life. You take the little jobs of life too seriously and aren't serious enough about the big job of living. "Isadore doesn't realize--never has--that a man needs rest and relaxation. He doesn't know what play means. Treats his body as a machine. He ought to be married. Ought to have a wife and children to think about besides his work--some one to play with. Some one to beat him over the head, if necessary, to distract his attention from the rut his mind has fallen into. He thinks too much over the generations of the future, not enough over this one and the next. And then he just naturally ought to have a wife, as every man who wants to be normally healthy does. Living like a monk and trying to do a real man's work! But what's the use of talking? You won't listen. It'll get you, too--just as sure as sunrise. Then you'll come yelping to me to help you out." "Why, I'm well," Yetta protested. "I don't know any one in better condition than I am." "Humph," he snorted. He finished his coffee, and getting up, stamped about the room impatiently.