"Do you only mean that I have broken down physically, or do you see any change in my work? The leading articles are mine, you know. Don't be afraid to be frank."
"Well, now that you ask me—Your articles are more forcible lately, more popular: they bring down the galleries, eh? But it's a sledge-hammer force, it's vehemence, d'ye see? There's a lack of that moderation, that repressed power, in which was your real strength. You asked me to be frank?"
"Yes. And I knew just what you would say. Well, what must be, is!" with a gesture which dismissed the subject.
"Nonsense! It's your nervous system that needs toning, that's all. If our side goes in, get a foreign mission—some warm, lazy place on the Mediterranean, say. Rest a few years, and when you come home take an easier pace for the rest of your life. Lord bless you, boy! I've been through it all. When I was a young fellow—mere bundle of nerves, high-strung, sir—high-strung! Ambition, love! Constitution wouldn't stand it!—Bit of the steak, John, rare.—Joe Rhodes, I said, either come down to the jog-trot level or die. So here I am! Good for forty years yet, please God! When you are my age you may be just what I am, if you choose."
Neckart's eye twinkled: "Try the birds, judge."
He made an effort after that to resume his old careless manner, and the judge had tact enough to drop the subject. But he was not deceived. "There's more here than meets the eye," he said shrewdly to himself. "Neckart has had a blow that has made him stagger. He has worked like a horse in a treadmill. But he has the constitution to stand it. Functions in healthy condition—tremendous vital power. Either hereditary disease is at work, or some morbid passion, or he would not have given way."
He urged him to eat with tender solicitude, even gave him his famous recipe for a salad. No matter what our sympathy, our help for each other can seldom come any closer than skin or stomach, after all.
"By the way," he said presently, "I hear that Swendon has bought a place up the Hudson. Can you tell me anything about him?"
"I meet him everywhere," said Neckart. "The old man is failing fast. But he takes life just as he always did—like a boy let loose for the holidays."