I had
no cold. Next came her kiss of parting--the level kiss of domesticity
flavored with Young Hyson. There was no fear of the extemporaneous,
of variety spicing her infinite custom. With the deft touch of long
malpractice, she dabbed awry my well-set scarf pin; and then, as I
closed the door, I heard her morning slippers pattering back to her
cooling tea.
When I set out I had no thought or premonition of what was to occur.
The attack came suddenly.
For many weeks I had been toiling, almost night and day, at a famous
railroad law case that I won triumphantly but a few days previously. In
fact, I had been digging away at the law almost without cessation for
many years. Once or twice good Doctor Volney, my friend and physician,
had warned me.
"If you don't slacken up, Bellford," he said, "you'll go suddenly to
pieces. Either your nerves or your brain will give way. Tell me,
does a week pass in which you do not read in the papers of a case of
aphasia--of some man lost, wandering nameless, with his past and his
identity blotted out--and all from that little brain clot made by
overwork or worry?"
"I always thought," said I, "that the clot in those instances was really
to be found on the brains of the newspaper reporters.
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