pon our
brains has produced a general depression throughout the system. Change
of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the
mental equilibrium."

George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet as a
medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary
way of putting things.

I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired
and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny
week among its drowsy lanes--some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the
fairies, out of reach of the noisy world--some quaint-perched eyrie on
the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth
century would sound far-off and faint.

Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He said he knew the sort of
place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and you
couldn't get a _Referee_ for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to
get your baccy.

"No," said Harris, "if you want rest and change, you can't beat a sea
trip."

I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when you
are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is
wicked.

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are
going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore,
light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were
Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into
one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a
little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet
smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you
begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning,
as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale,
waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.

I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once, for the
benefit of his health. He took a return berth from London to Liverpool;
and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to
sell that return ticket.

It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told;
and was eventually sold for eighteenpence to a bilious-looking youth who
had just been advised by his medical men to go to the sea-side, and take
exercise.

"Sea-side!" said