sixty-five, or one week out of every twenty-six. And then back again
to work. It is like taking a poor devil out of a box once a year, and
after giving him a breath of fresh air, putting him back and letting
the lid down on him again. It is often said that a thing is as free
as air, but to a busy man the air is anything but free. Whiskey, cigars,
newspapers, the church, the theatre are at hand and easy of access,
but the long, lazy, untrammelled breathing of fresh air out of town
is hard to get. I never see a cart-horse enjoying his dinner out of
a nose-bag that I don't think this is the way business men get their
fresh air. They sniff it from the streets on the run. They haven't
time to unharness and drop the cart and take a long and satisfactory
meal. I say I don't know who invented the two weeks system, but I
strongly suspect the doctors had a hand in it. I never hear their
flippant, devil-may-care (you must see by this time that I am in an
awful humor) way in which they assure you that a week or two out will
"set you up all right," that I don't feel that I am getting nearer and
nearer to the inventor. But what will I do with him if I get him? It
will be the old story, "You didn't improve at the pink sulphur springs;
why, what did you do?" Well, I lay down under the trees and had a good
rest. "That's it, my boy; didn't I tell you exercise was the thing;
why, that's what you went there for." And then he is astonished that
Smith didn't improve at the brown sulphur; "what could he have done?"
Well, he went fishing and hunted some. "Great Scott, man, how did you
expect to improve; why, you walked off every pound you gained. Why,
you went there for rest, not to walk yourself to death." And so they
go. As if fourteen days could hold enough of health in them to improve
anybody. Fourteen days is of no account to anybody unless, perhaps,
it might be a two-weeks respite to a man to be hung, and even that
would be a very temporary sort of satisfaction.