"Do you really like this menagerie?" Lux asked. "Or are you just looking for things to stick on cardboard with pins?"
That was what The Nut Tart had asked yesterday afternoon. Have you come looking for specimens? Well, she would make the same answer and see what Lux's reaction would be.
"Oh, I'm staying because I like it. A college of Physical Training wouldn't be a very good place to look for the abnormal, anyhow, would it." She made it a statement, not a question; and waited.
"Why not?" asked Miss Lux. "Sweating oneself into a coma may stultify the reason but it doesn't destroy the emotions."
"Doesn't it?" Lucy said, surprised. "If I were dog-tired I'm certain I wouldn't have any feelings about anything but going to sleep quickly."
"Going to sleep dead tired is all right; normal, and pleasant, and safe. It is when one wakens up dead tired that the trouble begins."
"What trouble?"
"The hypothetical trouble of this discussion," Lux said, smoothly.
"And is wakening up dead tired a common thing, would you say?"
"Well, I'm not their medical adviser so I can't run round with a stethoscope and fond inquiries, but I should say that five Seniors out of six in their last term are so tired that each morning is a mild nightmare. It is when one is as tired as that that one's emotional state ceases to be normal. A tiny obstacle becomes an Everest in the path; a careless comment becomes a grievance to be nursed; a small disappointment is all of a sudden a suicidal affair."