f about it. If there
was ever anybody "on the water wagon" it's I, and I have to sit on the
front seat from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water I'm supposed
to consume in that time. Sometime I'm going to get mixed up and try to
drink my bath if I don't look out. I dreamed night before last that I
was taking a bath in a glass of ice-cream soda-water and trying to hide
from Doctor John behind the dab of ice-cream that seemed inadequate for
food or protection. I haven't had even one glass for two months and I
woke up in a cold perspiration of embarrassment and raging hunger.

I don't know what I'm going to do about this book and I've got myself
into trouble about writing things besides records in it. He looked at me
this morning as coolly as if I was just anybody and said:

"I would like to see that record now, Mrs. Molly. It seems to me you are
about as slim as you want to be. How did you tip the scales last time
you weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?"

"I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds and I've got to melt and
freeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heart
question and also the question of producing this book. Wonder what he
would do if I gave it to him to read just as it is?

"How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smile
in his eyes for his mouth was purely professional. Anyway, I lowered my
lashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally:

"Sometimes it hurts." Then a cyclone happened to me.

"Come here to me a minute!" he said quickly and he turned me around and
put his head down between my shoulders and held me so tight against his
ear that I could hardly breathe.

"Expand your chest three times and breathe as deep as you can," he
ordered from against my back buttons. I expanded and breathed--pretty
quickly at that.

[Illustration: "Breathe as deep as you can"]

"Now hold your breath as long as you can," he commanded, and it fitted
my mood exactly to do so.

"Can't find anything," he said at last, letting me go and looking
carefully at my face. His eyes were all anxiety; and I liked it. "When
does it hurt you and how?" he asked anxiously.

"Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stop
myself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got white
for a minute and just looked at me as if I was a bug stuck on a pin,
then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table.

"I didn