Well, in short, I determine to "build up," to get myself in thoroughly "good shape."
I swear off smoking. I put away the home brew. I do not eat fresh bread. I procure myself overshoes against the rain. I rise with the lark. I (religiously eating an apple first) go to bed betimes. I walk so many miles a day—also skip a rope. I shun all delicacies of the table. I take those horrid extra cold baths, for the circulation. I do "deep breathing." I "relax" for twelve minutes each day. I shun the death-dealing demon "worry." I "fix my mind on cheerful thoughts." I "take up a hobby," philately, or something like that. I eat the skins of potatoes. I watch the thermometer at the office, and monkey continually with the steam radiator. Everything like that.
When you undertake a thing (even if it's only shelling peas) be thorough in it, that's my motto. I don't, indeed, in this regimen get much work done, but it's better to be slow and sure.
Well, what happens?
When I set out to build up this is what happens to me: First thing, maybe, I get pimples. No; no maybe about it. I sure get pimples. Then, very likely, I get a carbuncle. (I have just asked my assistant how you spell that word. She inquires if I mean the gem, or—or the other. I have told her I mean the other.)
Next, very probably, I "contract" (as they say) a cough. This cough "develops" into a cold.... You have (I trust) had that sort of cold which hangs on for months. Nothing recommended is of any help to you. You become resigned (more or less) to the idea—just as a man who has lost a leg (or his mind) must resolve to do the best he can with the rest of his life without his leg (or his mind), so must you adapt yourself to the stern condition imposed by Fate of always having a cold. That's the kind of a cold I mean that I get. (Only worse!)
My cold branches out into several little side lines, such as acute neuralgia and inflammatory rheumatism. Stiff joints impede my agility in getting down the hill to my morning train to the city. I slip on the ice and break my glasses.
Not having my glasses causes me at the office to greet Mr. Sloover as Mr. Rundle, and this sort of error breathes a chill upon the nice nuances of business.
Or in my personal correspondence (if I were that kind of a person) I might put my letter for Penelope into the envelope for Pauline. This, when I had discovered the calamity, would doubtless perturb my thoughts. My thoughts being perturbed, I might walk out of the restaurant without my change of three dollars and eighty cents. Thoroughly upset by now, I walk under a ladder. Realizing that I have done this, my nervousness is the occasion of my dropping my watch. Enough! I recognize that there is no use in my going back to the office that afternoon. I telephone in that I have gone home to bed with my cold.
On coming out of the cigar store where the telephone booth is, I see Christopher Morley, Don Marquis and Franklin P. Adams walking down the street arm in arm. (I can see very little without my glasses, but well enough to recognize such a spectacle as that.) Something, I say, must be on. And I cheer up considerably. Some cheering up certainly is just what I need. I overhaul the company. And I ask it (the company) where it is bound. It says: "For 'Mecca.' Come along." Don hands me a pocket flask (largely empty), Chris presents me with a large green cigar, and Frank gives me a match. It is agreed that we roll a little pool for a few hours while waiting for the cab.