Helen caught sight of Inez’ cheeks and hastened to her friend’s relief.
“Uncle Peabody, do you know that you are responsible for the first difference of opinion which has arisen between my husband and me?”
“My gracious, no! Can it be possible?”
“It is a fact. I stated to him only yesterday that perfect digestion was the only basis on which health and happiness can possibly rest. You taught me that, but Jack asserts that a touch of indigestion is absolutely essential to genius.”
“How does he know? Has he a touch of indigestion?”
“Not a touch,” laughed Armstrong, “and that proves my statement. I really believe I might have been a genius if my digestion had not always been so disgustingly strong.”
“Don’t despair, my dear boy.”
Uncle Peabody looked at Jack over his spectacles. “Genius is a germ, and sometimes develops late in life. If your theory is correct, a few more gastronomic orgies such as this will make you eligible.”
“But is there not something in what I say?” Armstrong persisted, seriously. “Is it not true that good health is against intellectual progression? Is not good health the supremacy of the physical over the mental? The healthy man is an animal—he eats and sleeps too much. Pain and suffering have not developed the nervous side, which is so closely connected with the intellectual. When the physical side becomes weakened, then the brain begins to act.”
Uncle Peabody listened attentively and then removed his spectacles. “My dear Jack Armstrong,” he said, at last, “I can see some fun ahead for both of us, and Helen has placed me still further in her debt by her choice of a husband. Your argument is not a new one. It was invented a great many years ago in France by some clever person who wished to have an excuse for late nights, absinthe, and cigarettes. Do you mean seriously to advance a theory which, if logically carried through to the end, would credit hospitals and homes for the hopelessly depraved with being the highest intellectual establishments in the world?”