A Martyr to Health.

“There was a gent in Middle Temple Lane,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “as I used to do for.  It’s my belief as ’e killed ’imself worrying twenty-four hours a day over what ’e called ’is ’ygiene.  Leastways ’e’s dead and buried now, which must be a comfort to ’imself, feeling as at last ’e’s out of danger.  All ’is time ’e spent taking care of ’imself—didn’t seem to ’ave a leisure moment in which to live.  For ’alf an hour every morning ’e’d lie on ’is back on the floor, which is a draughty place, I always ’old, at the best of times, with nothing on but ’is pyjamas, waving ’is arms and legs about, and twisting ’imself into shapes unnatural to a Christian.  Then ’e found out that everything ’e’d been doing on ’is back was just all wrong, so ’e turned over and did tricks on ’is stomach—begging your pardon for using the word—that you’d ’ave thought more fit and proper to a worm than to a man.  Then all that was discovered to be a mistake.  There don’t seem nothing certain in these matters.  That’s the awkward part of it, so it seems to me.  ’E got ’imself a machine, by means of which ’e’d ’ang ’imself up to the wall, and behave for all the world like a beetle with a pin stuck through ’im, poor thing.  It used to give me the shudders to catch sight of ’im through the ’alf-open door.  For that was part of the game: you ’ad to ’ave a current of air through the room, the result of which was that for six months out of the year ’e’d be coughing and blowing ’is nose from morning to night.  It was the new treatment, so ’e’d explain to me.  You got yourself accustomed to draughts so that they didn’t ’urt you, and if you died in the process that only proved that you never ought to ’ave been born.

“Then there came in this new Japanese business, and ’e’d ’ire a little smiling ’eathen to chuck ’im about ’is room for ’alf an hour every morning after breakfast.  It got on my nerves after a while ’earing ’im being bumped on the floor every minute, or flung with ’is ’ead into the fire-place.  But ’e always said it was doing ’im good.  ’E’d argue that it freshened up ’is liver.  It was ’is liver that ’e seemed to live for—didn’t appear to ’ave any other interest in life.  It was the same with ’is food.  One year it would be nothing but meat, and next door to raw at that.  One of them medical papers ’ad suddenly discovered that we were intended to be a sort of wild beast.  The wonder to me is that ’e didn’t go out ’unting chickens with a club, and bring ’em ’ome and eat ’em on the mat without any further fuss.  For drink it would be boiling water that burnt my fingers merely ’andling the glass.  Then some other crank came out with the information that every other crank was wrong—which, taken by itself, sounds natural enough—that meat was fatal to the ’uman system.  Upon that ’e becomes all at once a raging, tearing vegetarian, and trouble enough I ’ad learning twenty different ways of cooking beans, which didn’t make, so far as I could ever see, the slightest difference—beans they were, and beans they tasted like, whether you called them ragoût à la maison, or cutlets à la Pompadour.  But it seemed to please ’im.