"I don't see how I can persuade myself that I am quite well," he said, when he returned, "when I feel terribly ill."
"Yes, it wants resolution, Terence, and I am afraid that you are deficient in that. It must not be half-and-half. You have got to say to yourself, 'This is glorious; I never enjoyed myself so well in my life,' and when you have said that and feel that it is quite true, the whole thing will be over."
"I don't doubt it in the least," Terence said; "but I can't say it without telling a prodigious lie, and worse still, I could not believe the lie when I had told it."
"Then I am afraid that you must submit to be ill, Terence. I know once that I had a drame, and the drame was that I was at sea and horribly sea-sick, and I woke up and said to myself, 'This is all nonsense, I am as well as ever I was;' and, faith, so I was."
Ill as Terence was, he burst into a fit of laughter.
"That was just a dream, Captain O'Grady; but mine is a reality, you know. I don't think that you are looking quite well yourself."
"I am perfectly well as far as the sea goes, Terence; never was better in my life; but that pork we had for dinner yesterday was worse than usual, and I think perhaps I ought to have taken another glass or two to correct it."
"It must have been the pork," Terence said, as seriously as O'Grady himself; "and it is unfortunate that you are such an abstemious man, or, as you say, its effects might have been corrected."
"It's me opinion, Terence, my boy, that you are a humbug."
"Then, Captain O'Grady, it is clear that evil communications must have corrupted my good manners."