"Positively, I never can take a breakfast! Everything very tempting, though. But then, want of sleep! Ah! I can't get over that."
By this time, I knew better than to contradict my friend, and I suffered his remarks, therefore, to pass unchallenged. In due time, we went to the concert. Several songs by distinguished artists were sung, the chief burden of them being the pleasures of summer, bright, sunny days, golden dawns, and glorious eves. These appropriate subjects and the heat of the room made me sigh for some shady retreat under a leafy canopy, such as had charmed my eye during our saunter of the previous evening. The concert came to an end.
"Do you know," said my friend, when we found ourselves in the open air, "I don't much care for music?"
"Not on a hot day, perhaps," I replied.
"No, sir, it is not that; but I have turned the occasion to some profit."
"I am glad of it."
"Yes, sir; I shall write an article for the Medico-Chirurgical Observer. I am convinced that vocalization injures the larynx. I can prove it. The demonstration became quite painful at last, but I sat it out."
"Then we may bless our stars that we are not singers?"
"We may, indeed! A fatal gift."
"I will wait to see you in type," I remarked, in the expectation of closing a discussion which began to appal me.