yell at him to go away; but I need a
burned neck and a peeled nose, a little more zest for my food, and a
little more zip about my work, if the interests of the American hog
are going to be safe in my hands this spring. I don't seem to have so
much luck as some fellows in hooking these fifty-pound fish lies, but
I always manage to land a pretty heavy appetite and some big nights'
sleep when I strike salt water. Then I can go back to the office and
produce results like a hen in April with eggs at eleven cents a dozen.

[Illustration: I don't really need a tarpon ... but I need a burned
neck and a peeled nose]

Health is like any inheritance--you can spend the interest in work and
play, but you mustn't break into the principal. Once you do, and it's
only a matter of time before you've got to place the remnants in the
hands of a doctor as receiver; and receivers are mighty partial to
fees and mighty slow to let go. But if you don't work with him to get
the business back on a sound basis there's no such thing as any
further voluntary proceedings, and the remnants become remains.

It's a mighty simple thing, though, to keep in good condition, because
about everything that makes for poor health has to get into you right
under your nose. Yet a fellow'll load up with pie and buckwheats for
breakfast and go around wondering about his stomach-ache, as if it
were a put-up job that had been played on him when he wasn't looking;
or he'll go through his dinner pickling each course in a different
brand of alcohol, and sob out on the butler's shoulder that the booze
isn't as pure as it used to be when he was a boy; or he'll come home
at midnight singing "The Old Oaken Bucket," and act generally as if
all the water in the world were in the well on the old homestead, and
the mortgage on that had been foreclosed; or from 8 P.M. to 3 G.X.
he'll sit in a small game with a large cigar, breathing a blend of
light-blue cigarette smoke and dark-blue cuss-words, and next day,
when his heart beats four and skips two, and he has that queer,
hopping sensation in the knees, he'll complain bitterly to the other
clerks that this confining office work is killing him.

Of course, with all the care in the world, a fellow's likely to catch
things, but there's no sense in sending out invitations to a lot of
miscellaneous microbes and pretending when they call that it's a
surprise party. Bad health hates a man who is friendly with its
enemies--hard work