unctuously. "_I_ can let myself out without danger."

"Why, you eat nothing! The campaign's been too much for you, Mr.
Neckart," he said aloud. "You've run down terribly in the last year.
Always the way. You young men make too many spurts in the first heat,
and break down before the middle of the race. Well, that's our American
policy. But the American physique won't stand it."

"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 abo