“Pax!” cried the young man. “I have all I want.”
“Great!” said his father. “I believe you could fight, boy, if you were forced to.”
In the shed they sluiced each other with pails of water, had a rub down and got into their dressing gowns.
“I feel fine, now, dad, and ready for anything,” said Barry, glowing with his exercise and his tub. “I was feeling like a quitter. I guess that asthma got at my nerve. But I believe I will see it through some way.”
“Yes?” said his father, and waited.
“Yes. They were talking blue ruin in there to-night. Finances are behind, congregation is running down, therefore the preacher is a failure.”
“Well, lad, remember this,” said his father, “never let your liver decide any course of action for you. Some good stiff work, a turn with the gloves, for instance, is the best preparation I know for any important decision. A man cannot decide wisely when he feels grubby. Your asthma this afternoon is a symptom of liver.”
“It is humiliating to a creature endowed with conscience and intellect to discover how small a part these play at times in his decisions. The ancients were not far wrong who made the liver the seat of the emotions.”
“Well,” said his father, “it is a good thing to remember that most of our bad hours come from our livers. So the preacher is a failure? Who said so?”
“Oh, a number of them, principally Hayes.”