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 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. “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 Dick. “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 Dick. “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. Dick said he would take a stroll into the town. Robina suggested he might take Veronica with him, that perhaps a bun and a glass of milk would do the child no harm.