He said it made his brain clear. When he got his brain perfectly clear, he went to bed and slept. As soon as he woke, he began clearing it again.

Jiggins is dead. He was, of course, a pioneer, but the fact that he dumb-belled himself to death at an early age does not prevent a whole generation of young men from following in his path.

They are ridden by the Health Mania.

They make themselves a nuisance.

They get up at impossible hours. They go out in silly little suits and run Marathon heats before breakfast. They chase around barefoot to get the dew on their feet. They hunt for ozone. They bother about pepsin. They won’t eat meat because it has too much nitrogen. They won’t eat fruit because it hasn’t any. They prefer albumen and starch and nitrogen to huckleberry pie and doughnuts. They won’t drink water out of a tap. They won’t eat sardines out of a can. They won’t use oysters out of a pail. They won’t drink milk out of a glass. They are afraid of alcohol in any shape. Yes, sir, afraid. “Cowards.”

And after all their fuss they presently incur some simple old-fashioned illness and die like anybody else.

Now people of this sort have no chance to attain any great age. They are on the wrong track.

Listen. Do you want to live to be really old, to enjoy a grand, green, exuberant, boastful old age and to make yourself a nuisance to your whole neighbourhood with your reminiscences?

Then cut out all this nonsense. Cut it out. Get up in the morning at a sensible hour. The time to get up is when you have to, not before. If your office opens at eleven, get up at ten-thirty. Take your chance on ozone. There isn’t any such thing anyway. Or, if there is, you can buy a thermos bottle full for five cents, and put it on a shelf in your cupboard. If your work begins at seven in the morning, get up at ten minutes to, but don’t be liar enough to say that you like it. It isn’t exhilarating, and you know it.

Also, drop all that cold-bath nonsense. You never did it when you were a boy.