ir own children easier than they can to other people's
pestiferous brats. I don't know that there is science about any of
this--no means of escape is all there is to it.

Of late years I have changed my opinion regarding germs, the same as I
have done over and over regarding everything else. We are all apt to think
that the only good germs are like good Indians--dead ones. Perhaps most of
these microscopic creatures are conservative and play some useful part in
life's economy if we only knew what it is. Then we don't know whether
microbes are the cause or the product of disease--just as we don't know
which came first, the hen or the egg. What we don't know in this matter
would make a stupendous volume. At any rate it is of no use to run from
germs, for they are omnipresent.

Appendicitis was a disease that I spent much time in battling. I read up
on it and knew all the symptoms. I went to the public library and hunted
up a Gray's _Anatomy_ and studied the appendix. It seemed to be a little
receptacle in which to side-track grape-seeds and other useless rubbish. I
would no sooner have knowingly swallowed a grape- or a lemon-seed than I
would a stick of dynamite. I would not eat oysters lest I get a piece of
shell or even a pearl into my vermiform appendix. I was exceedingly
careful never to swallow anything which I thought might contain a gritty
substance. I had once heard a lecturer on hygiene and sanitation speak of
the limy coat which forms on the inside of our tea-kettles from using
"hard" water. He stated that in time we would get that sort of crust
inside of us from drinking water which contained mineral matter. I thought
how easy it would be for some of it to chip off and slip into the appendix
and set up an inflammation. So to be on the safe side, I thought I would
try drinking spring water for a while, but it gave me a bad case of
malaria. I then came to the conclusion that between being dead with
chills and having an inner concrete lining I would choose the latter,
which seemed the lesser evil. But with some friend being operated upon for
appendicitis nearly every day I could not easily dismiss this disease from
my mind. Yet I realized that it was a high-toned disease and also a
high-priced one, and that most fellows with my commercial rating are
immune from it.

I happened to be visiting a friend in a small town, for a few days, and
was acquiring a voracious appetite. One evening I was seized with a sudden
p