But perhaps
orphans are easier.

How to Live to be 200

Twenty years ago I knew a man called Jiggins, who had
the Health Habit.

He used to take a cold plunge every morning. He said it
opened his pores. After it he took a hot sponge. He said
it closed the pores. He got so that he could open and
shut his pores at will.

Jiggins used to stand and breathe at an open window for
half an hour before dressing. He said it expanded his
lungs. He might, of course, have had it done in a shoe-store
with a boot stretcher, but after all it cost him nothing
this way, and what is half an hour?

After he had got his undershirt on, Jiggins used to hitch
himself up like a dog in harness and do Sandow exercises.
He did them forwards, backwards, and hind-side up.

He could have got a job as a dog anywhere. He spent all
his time at this kind of thing. In his spare time at the
office, he used to lie on his stomach on the floor and
see if he could lift himself up with his knuckles. If he
could, then he tried some other way until he found one
that he couldn't do. Then he would spend the rest of his
lunch hour on his stomach, perfectly happy.

In the evenings in his room he used to lift iron bars,
cannon-balls, heave dumb-bells, and haul himself up to
the ceiling with his teeth. You could hear the thumps
half a mile. He liked it.

He spent half the night slinging himself around his room.
He said it made his brain clear. When he got his brain
perfectly clear, he went to bed and slept. As soon as he
woke, he began clearing it again.

Jiggins is dead. He was, of course, a pioneer, but the
fact that he dumb-belled himself to death at an early
age does not prevent a whole generation of young men from
following in his path.

They are ridden by the Health Mania.

They make themselves a nuisance.

They get up at impossible hours. They go out in silly
little suits and run Marathon heats before breakfast.
They chase around barefoot to get the dew on their feet.
They hunt for ozone. They bother about pepsin. They won't
eat meat because it has too much nitrogen. They won't
eat fruit because it hasn't any. They prefer albumen and
starch and nitrogen to huckleberry pie and doughnuts.
They won't drink water out of a tap. They won't eat
sardines out of a can. They won't use oysters out of a
pail. They won't drink milk out of a glass. They are
afraid of alcohol in any shape. Yes, sir, afraid. "Cowards."

And after all their fuss th