“The best thing in the world, my dear boy,” Hippias returned. “It makes me wish I had given up that Work of mine, and tried it before, instead of chaining myself to a task. We’re quite different beings in a minute. I am. Hem! what shall we have for dinner?” “Leave that to me, uncle. I shall order for you. You know, I intend to make you well. How gloriously we go along! I should like to ride on a railway every day.” Hippias remarked: “They say it rather injures the digestion.” “Nonsense! see how you’ll digest to-night and to-morrow.” “Perhaps I shall do something yet,” sighed Hippias, alluding to the vast literary fame he had aforetime dreamed of. “I hope I shall have a good night to-night.” “Of course you will! What! after laughing like that?” “Ugh!” Hippias grunted, “I daresay, Richard, you sleep the moment you get into bed!” “The instant my head’s on my pillow, and up the moment I wake. Health’s everything!” “Health’s everything!” echoed Hippias, from his immense distance. “And if you’ll put yourself in my hands,” Richard continued, “you shall do just as I do. You shall be well and strong, and sing ‘Jolly!’ like Adrian’s blackbird. You shall, upon my honour, uncle!” He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle’s recovery—no less than twelve a day—that he intended to expend, and his cheery robustness almost won his uncle to leap up recklessly and clutch health as his own. “Mind,” quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile, “mind your dishes are not too savoury!” “Light food and claret! Regular meals and amusement! Lend your heart to all, but give it to none!” exclaims young Wisdom, and Hippias mutters, “Yes! yes!” and intimates that the origin of his malady lay in his not following that maxim earlier. “Love ruins us, my dear boy,” he said, thinking to preach Richard a lesson, and Richard boisterously broke out: “The love of Monsieur Francatelli, It was the ruin of—et coetera.” Hippias blinked, exclaiming, “Really, my dear boy! I never saw you so excited.” “It’s the railway! It’s the fun, uncle!” “Ah!” Hippias wagged a melancholy head, “you’ve got the Golden Bride! Keep her if you can. That’s a pretty fable of your father’s. I gave him the idea, though. Austin filches a great many of my ideas!” “Here’s the idea in verse, uncle: ‘O sunless walkers by the tide! O have you seen the Golden Bride! They say that she is fair beyond All women; faithful, and more fond! You know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent sinners by the brink of a stream. They howl, and answer: Faithful she is, but she forsakes: And fond, yet endless woe she makes: And fair! but with this curse she’s cross’d; To know her not till she is lost!’ “Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly, and the fabulist pursues: ‘She hath a palace in the West: Bright Hesper lights her to her rest: And him the Morning Star awakes Whom to her charmed arms she takes. So lives he till he sees, alas! The maids of baser metal pass.’