y gave the doctor
to understand that he was in no way disturbed by the work of Nature to
secure a continuance of the British Empire. The conversation shifted to
Henry's self, and soon Henry was engaged in a detailed description of
his symptoms.

'Purely nervous,' remarked the doctor--'purely nervous.'

'You think so?'

'I am sure of it.'

'Then, of course, there is no cure for it. I must put up with it.'

'Pardon me,' said the doctor, 'there is an absolutely certain cure for
nervous dyspepsia--at any rate, in such a case as yours.'

'What is it?'

'Go without breakfast'

'But I don't eat too much, doctor,' Henry said plaintively.

'Yes, you do,' said the doctor. 'We all do.'

'And I'm always hungry at meal-times. If a meal is late it makes me
quite ill.'

'You'll feel somewhat uncomfortable for a few days,' the doctor blandly
continued. 'But in a month you'll be cured.'

'You say that professionally?'

'I guarantee it.'

The doctor shook hands, departed, and then returned. 'And eat rather
less lunch than usual,' said he. 'Mind that.'

Within three days Henry was informing his friends: 'I never have any
breakfast. No, none. Two meals a day.' It was astonishing how frequently
the talk approached the great food topic. He never sought an opportunity
to discuss the various methods and processes of sustaining life, yet,
somehow, he seemed to be always discussing them. Some of his
acquaintances annoyed him excessively--for example, Doxey.

'That won't last long, old chap,' said Doxey, who had called about
finance. 'I've known other men try that. Give me the good old English
breakfast. Nothing like making a good start.'

'Ass!' thought Henry, and determined once again, and more decisively,
that Doxey should pass out of his life.

His preoccupation with this matter had the happy effect of preventing
him from worrying too much about the perils which lay before Geraldine.
Discovering the existence of an Anti-Breakfast League, he joined it, and
in less than a week every newspaper in the land announced that the ranks
of the Anti-Breakfasters had secured a notable recruit in the person of
Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight. It was widely felt that the Anti-Breakfast
Movement had come to stay.

Still, he was profoundly interested in Geraldine, too. And between his
solicitude for her and his scientific curiosity concerning the secret
recesses of himself the flat soon overflowed with medical literature.

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