330 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



blazing hot spring sunshine, I plunged into a 

 bath of freezing atmosphere carried on a gale 

 that sent the chilliness searchlngr into me in the 

 way that up-to-date salt beef is made, with 

 tremendous hydraulic pressure. This latter so 

 impregnates the meat's tissues and fibres with 

 saline decoction that at the finish there is a sight 

 more decoction than beef — as you find when you 

 come to cook it. 



The next thing worth noting was my good 

 doctor's speaking and giving forth his opinion 

 like one who knows what he is talking about. 

 "If you cannot understand that a man with a 

 temperature of a hundred and three, and no legs 

 to carry him, is unfit to go out in a bitter wind, 



you must be " I was so afraid he was going 



to say *' A bigger fool than I took you for," that, 

 for fear he might offend me, I interposed as some 

 sort of defence, that I was sure he could patch me 

 up for Lincoln on Monday. Now, it is curious, 

 is it not ? what a lot these medical men get to know 

 somehow about racing. This one must actually 

 have had the fixtures pat, for he went through 

 the whole week, playing a full hand on me. " I 

 shall not patch you up for Monday at Lincoln," 

 says he, *'nor for Tuesday, nor for Wednesday; 

 nor for Thursday at Liverpool, nor for the 

 Grand National Day, nor Saturday either." He 

 had got the lot letter-perfect; "and," he added, 

 "if you start unpatched, I will come with another 

 doctor who will do anything I tell him, and two 

 ready-filled-up certificates, and have you locked up 

 as a lunatic." So as not to seem at all domineer- 

 ing in the business, he wound up with a bland 

 assurance that I was altogether my own master ; 

 and left me in the flattest part of Bedfordshire, old 



