‘Ah! as you please, as you please,’ Diaz snapped. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Poor fellow!’ I reflected. ‘He must be suffering from nervous irritability.’ And aloud, ‘I’m not thirsty, thank you,’ as nicely as possible.
He smiled beautifully; the irritability had passed.
‘It’s awfully kind of you to sit down here with me,’ he said, in a lower voice. ‘I suppose you’ve heard about me?’
He drank half the contents of the glass.
‘I read in the papers some years ago that you were suffering from neurasthenia and nervous breakdown,’ I replied. ‘I was very sorry.’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘nervous breakdown—nervous breakdown.’
‘You haven’t been playing lately, have you?’
‘It is more than two years since I played. And if you had heard me that time! My God!’
‘But surely you have tried some cure?’