"First of all give me a wholesome chop if you have another in the house, for I'm famishing."
"Oh, a thousand pardons for my remissness!" he exclaimed, ringing the bell vehemently. "Of course you haven't dined. I ought to have thought of that. Something very important, I suppose?"
"A most interesting case."
"Mental?"
"Yes. A lady."
"Well, not another word until you've had something to eat. Suitable surroundings play an important part in the discussion of such cases, and suitable times and seasons also. Just before dinner one isn't sanguine, and just after one is too much so. When you have eaten, take time to reflect—and a cigarette if you are a smoker." He had been holding his book in his hand all the time, but now he pottered to a side-table with an old man's stiffness, peeped at the paragraph he had been reading, marked his place with a paper cutter, and muttered—"Very strange, for if she didn't steal the jewels, who did? Mustn't dip though; spoils it." He put the book down, and returned to me, taking off his spectacles as he came, and smoothing his thick white hair. "Now don't say a word if you've read it," he cautioned me. "I always owe everybody a grudge who tells me the plot of a story I'm interested in. But, let me see, what was I saying? Oh! Take time, that was it! There is nothing like letting yourself settle if you are at all perplexed. When the memory is crowded with details the mind becomes muddy, and you must let it clear itself. That is the secret of my own success. In any difficulty I have always waited. Don't try to think, Much better dismiss the matter from your mind altogether, make yourself comfortable in the easiest chair in the room, get a rousing book—the subject is of no importance, so long as it interests you—and in half an hour, if the physical well-being is satisfactory, you will find the mental tension gradually relax. Your ideas begin to flow, your judgment becomes clear, and you suddenly see for yourself in a way that astonishes you."
"Then pray oblige me by resuming your seat and cigarette," I answered, "and let me transfer my difficulty to you while the moment lasts—your moment!"
"When you have dined," he said good-humouredly. "I won't hear a word while you are famishing. Tell me how you are yourself, and what you are doing. My dear boy, it is really a pleasure to see you! Why aren't you married?"
"Now, really, do you expect me to answer such an important question as that with my mind in its present muddy condition!" I retorted upon him. "My many reasons are all rioting in my recollection, and I can't see one clearly,"
The old gentleman smiled, and sat patting the arms of his chair for a little. "You're looking fagged," he remarked presently. "Work won't hurt you, but beware of worry!"