ays
'aving 'ad 'is food as 'ot as 'e could swallow it. A bit of sense did
begin to dawn upon 'im then, but too late in the day, I take it. 'E'd
played about with 'imself too long. 'E died at thirty-two, looking to
all appearance sixty, and you can't say as 'ow it was the result of not
taking advice."

Only just in time.

"On this subject of health we are much too ready to follow advice," I
agreed. "A cousin of mine, Mrs. Wilkins, had a wife who suffered
occasionally from headache. No medicine relieved her of them--not
altogether. And one day by chance she met a friend who said: 'Come
straight with me to Dr. Blank,' who happened to be a specialist famous
for having invented a new disease that nobody until the year before had
ever heard of. She accompanied her friend to Dr. Blank, and in less than
ten minutes he had persuaded her that she had got this new disease, and
got it badly; and that her only chance was to let him cut her open and
have it out. She was a tolerably healthy woman, with the exception of
these occasional headaches, but from what that specialist said it was
doubtful whether she would get home alive, unless she let him operate on
her then and there, and her friend, who appeared delighted, urged her not
to commit suicide, as it were, by missing her turn.

"The result was she consented, and afterwards went home in a four-wheeled
cab, and put herself to bed. Her husband, when he returned in the
evening and was told, was furious. He said it was all humbug, and by
this time she was ready to agree with him. He put on his hat, and
started to give that specialist a bit of his mind. The specialist was
out, and he had to bottle up his rage until the morning. By then, his
wife now really ill for the first time in her life, his indignation had
reached boiling point. He was at that specialist's door at half-past
nine o'clock. At half-past eleven he came back, also in a four-wheeled
cab, and day and night nurses for both of them were wired for. He also,
it appeared, had arrived at that specialist's door only just in time.

"There's this appendy--whatever they call it," commented Mrs. Wilkins,
"why a dozen years ago one poor creature out of ten thousand may possibly
'ave 'ad something wrong with 'is innards. To-day you ain't 'ardly
considered respectable unless you've got it, or 'ave 'ad it. I 'ave no
patience with their talk. To listen to some of them you'd think as
Nature 'adn't made a man