The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dead Alive, by Wilkie Collins

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Title: The Dead Alive

Author: Wilkie Collins

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7891]
Posting Date: July 31, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD ALIVE ***

Produced by James Rusk

THE DEAD ALIVE

By Wilkie Collins

CHAPTER I. THE SICK MAN.

"HEART all right," said the doctor. "Lungs all right. No organic
disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don't alarm yourself. You
are not going to die yet. The disease you are suffering from
is--overwork. The remedy in your case is--rest."

So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the Temple (London); having been
sent for to see me about half an hour after I had alarmed my clerk by
fainting at my desk. I have no wish to intrude myself needlessly on the
reader's attention; but it may be necessary to add, in the way of
explanation, that I am a "junior" barrister in good practice. I come
from the channel Island of Jersey. The French spelling of my name
(Lefranc) was Anglicized generations since--in the days when the letter
"k" was still used in England at the end of words which now terminate
in "c." We hold our heads high, nevertheless, as a Jersey family. It is
to this day a trial to my father to hear his son described as a member
of the English bar.

"Rest!" I repeated, when my medical adviser had done. "My good friend,
are you aware that it is term-time? The courts are sitting. Look at the
briefs waiting for me on that table! Rest means ruin in my case."

"And work," added the doctor, quietly, "means death."

I started. He was not trying to frighten me: he was plainly in earnest.

"It is merely a question of time," he went on. "You have a fine
constitution; you are a young man; but you cannot deliberately overwork
your brain, and derange your nervous system, much longer. Go away at
once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean air is the
best of all air to build you up again. No: I don't want to write a
prescription. I decline to physic you. I have no more to say."

With these words my medical friend left the room. I was obstinate: I
went in