"rectify" his own
melancholy.

By and by, turning over the musty old pages, he came to the following,
on Sleep--

The fittest time is two or three hours after supper, whenas the meat is
now settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis good to lie on the
right side first, because at that site the liver doth rest under the
stomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth a
kettle, that is put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not amiss to lie
on the left side, that the meat may the better descend, and sometimes
again on the belly, but never on the back. Seven or eight hours is a
competent time for a melancholy man to rest----

In that case, thought Roger, it's time for me to be turning in. He
looked at his watch, and found it was half-past twelve. He switched
off his light and went back to the kitchen quarters to tend the furnace.

I hesitate to touch upon a topic of domestic bitterness, but candor
compels me to say that Roger's evening vigils invariably ended at the
ice-box. There are two theories as to this subject of ice-box
plundering, one of the husband and the other of the wife. Husbands are
prone to think (in their simplicity) that if they take a little of
everything palatable they find in the refrigerator, but thus
distributing their forage over the viands the general effect of the
depradation will be almost unnoticeable. Whereas wives say (and Mrs.
Mifflin had often explained to Roger) that it is far better to take all
of any one dish than a little of each; for the latter course is likely
to diminish each item below the bulk at which it is still useful as a
left-over. Roger, however, had the obstinate viciousness of all good
husbands, and he knew the delights of cold provender by heart. Many a
stewed prune, many a mess of string beans or naked cold boiled potato,
many a chicken leg, half apple pie, or sector of rice pudding, had
perished in these midnight festivals. He made it a point of honour
never to eat quite all of the dish in question, but would pass with
unabated zest from one to another. This habit he had sternly repressed
during the War, but Mrs. Mifflin had noticed that since the armistice
he had resumed it with hearty violence. This is a custom which causes
the housewife to be confronted the next morning with a tragical vista
of pathetic scraps. Two slices of beet in a little earthenware cup, a
sliver of apple pie one inch wide, three prunes lowly nestling in a
mer