ABOUT BUYING A HORSE. 177 



And why does a Doctor — I mean my Doctor — always come 

 at meal-times, just as I'm sitting down to be comfortable ? 



You can't, I mean I can't, suddenly lie back helplessly in 

 an armchair, pale and gasping, in a brocaded dressing-gown 

 and a shirt open at the collar (like Louis the Fourteenth at 

 a bedchamber reception) when there's a steaming cut off the 

 joint with vegetables and a decanter of Claret before you. 

 You can't say, " O, Doctor, I'm so ill " in the face of such a 

 luncheon, or a late breakfast of similar dimensions. You 

 must feel that to do so would irritate him into sending you 

 the nastiest draught he could make up, and, so to speak, 

 giving you something to be ill for. A sort of practical black 

 draught joke on his part, in return for being taken away from 

 his dinner, or his luncheon, or a day's outing somewhere, by 

 a false alarm. I don't think that doctors, as a rule, would be 

 revengeful. They are among the few people to whom I 

 would subscribe for a testimonial. 



I tell Boodells that I have no appetite for breakfast. 



" Bah ! " he returns, quite contemptuously, " why I haven't 

 known what it is to make a breakfast for yearsT 



" Yes," I object, rather pettishly [I feel it is pettish — N.B. 



Make a note of this for my new book. Queries of Htmiatiityj 

 vol. i., under the head of " Small Causes "—why provoked 

 by nothing, &c. ? big siibjects\ "but I am accustomed 

 to eat a large breakfast, and when I fall off, it must be 

 serious." 



" Nonsense," returns Boodells, "you've only got a slight 

 cold, and are bilious, I dare say you over-ate yourself one 

 day." 



N 



