"What's this! What's this!" exclaimed Mr. Bowser, as he came home the other evening and found Mrs. Bowser lying on the sofa and looking very much distressed.
"The doctor says it's the grip—a second attack," she explained. "I was taken with a chill and headache about noon and—"
"Grip? Second attack? That's all nonsense, Mrs. Bowser! Nobody can have the grip a second time."
"But the doctor says so."
"Then the doctor is an idiot, and I'll tell him so to his face. I know what's the matter with you. You've been walking around the backyard barefoot or doing some other foolish thing. I expected it, however. No woman is happy unless she's flat down about half the time. How on earth any of your sex manage to live to be twenty years old is a mystery to me. The average woman has no more sense than a rag baby."
"I haven't been careless," she replied.
"I know better! Of course you have! If you hadn't been you wouldn't be where you are. Grip be hanged! Well, it's only right that you should suffer for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy from me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse to sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser—absolutely and teetotally refuse to utter one word of pity."
Mrs. Bowser had nothing to say in reply. Mr. Bowser ate his dinner alone, took advantage of the occasion to drive a few nails and make a great noise, and by and by went off to his club and was gone until midnight. Next morning Mrs. Bowser felt a bit better and made a heroic attempt to be about until he started for the office.
The only reference he made to her illness was to say:
"If you live to be three hundred years old, you may possibly learn something about the laws of health and be able to keep out of bed three days in a week."