Then, after rounding up Rehoboam, and placing him on the hearthrug to give an air of social welcome, they locked the door, putting the key under the fourth flower-pot, and skipped up the hill again by the woodland path, as Miss Primkins turned into her little garden gate.
OF course, it seemed ridiculous for a sane and moderately well brought-up individual to dress herself to go out—and in a new hat, too—and, then, simply because her dog happened to tumble out of the window, to collapse on the hearthrug like an anæmic concertina, while she draped her head gracefully over the fender, with the plumes of the said new hat resting resignedly on the fire-irons.
It didn’t seem quite reasonable to want to go to sleep like that. Still, as I showed signs of doing it once more, after they had propped me upright again, they decided to put me to bed.
When I woke up, they told me I was ill. That seemed ridiculous, too, and I said so; and added that now I had had a little rest I intended to get up and go to town—important appointment; couldn’t possibly be spared, etc.
And they all said lots of things—you know the kind of arguments your friends always bring to bear on you if you chance to be just a little out of sorts. I tried to make them understand that I was indispensable to the well-being of London; that, though _they_ might be in the habit of shirking work under the slightest pretext of a headache, _I_ wasn’t that sort of a person. I owed it to my conscience, as well as to the world at large, to be at work in my office within half an hour, penning words of wisdom that should keep the universe on its proper balance.
Ursula merely asked if I liked the milk with the beaten egg _quite_ cold or a trifle warm?
In the end I had to give in. They insisted I was ill; and I admit I was feeling unusually tired.
But as the weeks went by I did not get as strong as I had hoped to do. I seldom got farther than an easy-chair, and not always as far as that. So at last I determined to try the cure that hitherto had never failed me. Trunks were packed, and they got me down by easy stages to the cottage among the hills. I felt that if only I could see the flowers and breathe the air that blows way over from where the lighthouse blinks in the channel, I should certainly pick up both my strength and my courage.