The perpetual nervous worry told upon me. I became thin. My clothing hung loose upon me. I took up two inches in my waistcoat strap. The appetite which enabled me to find enjoyment at the table deserted me. The food seemed tasteless; and if in the midst of a meal the neigh of the horse came eddying up through the air from the stable, I turned away with a feeling of disgust, and felt as if I wanted to prod somebody with the carving-knife.
One day my wife said to me:
"Mr. Adeler, you know that I urged you strongly to buy that horse, and I thought he would do, but—"
"But now you want to sell him! ha! ha!" I exclaimed, with delight. "Very well, I'll send him to the auctioneer this very day."
"I wasn't going to say that," she remarked. "What I wanted to mention was that nearly everybody in good circumstances about here drives a pair, and I think we ought to get another horse; don't you, my dear? It's so much nicer than having only one."
"Mrs. Adeler," I said, solemnly, "that one horse down there in the stable has reduced me to a skeleton and made me utterly miserable. I will do as you say if you insist upon it, but I tell you plainly that if another horse is brought upon these premises I shall go mad."
"Don't speak in that manner, my dear."
"I tell you, Mrs. Adeler, that I shall go stark, staring mad! Take your choice: go without the other horse or have a maniac husband."