“So I’ve noticed,” replied Scanlon, agreeably.
The jaundiced man shook his head.
“Ah, the doctors,” said he. “If I could control my liver without their attention, I’d be satisfied never to lay eyes upon another one of them.” He studied Bat for a space, and then said in an awed tone, “The liver, sir, is a most tremendous thing.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Scanlon, cheerfully. “I suppose I’ve got one myself, but it’s never introduced itself to me, and so I haven’t given it much attention.”
The saffron-hued man seemed appalled at this last.
“Sir,” said he, “I am a stranger, and I know it is a very great liberty to take, but I cannot help a word to you, now that I see it is needed.”
“Sure,” said Bat, “go ahead!”
“Some one—and a very wise person it must have been—has said: ‘In time of peace, prepare for war.’ That, sir, should be the duty of every man; he should not procrastinate; he should, so to speak, take his liver by the forelock, and tame it—tame it, sir, completely.”
“But,” protested Mr. Scanlon, “a liver that’s never, in its career as such, said anything to its owner, seems to me to be tame enough.”
The jaundiced one grew more agitated than ever.