THE HEYDAY OF THE BLOOD
The older professor looked up at the assistant, fumbling fretfully with a pile of papers. "Farrar, what's the matter with you lately?" he said sharply.
The younger man started, "Why … why …" the brusqueness of the other's manner shocked him suddenly into confession. "I've lost my nerve, Professor Mallory, that's what the matter with me. I'm frightened to death," he said melodramatically.
"What of?" asked Mallory, with a little challenge in his tone.
The flood-gates were open. The younger man burst out in exclamations, waving his thin, nervous, knotted fingers, his face twitching as he spoke. "Of myself … no, not myself, but my body! I'm not well … I'm getting worse all the time. The doctors don't make out what is the matter … I don't sleep … I worry … I forget things, I take no interest in life … the doctors intimate a nervous breakdown ahead of me … and yet I rest … I rest .… more than I can afford to! I never go out. Every evening I'm in bed by nine o'clock. I take no part in college life beyond my work, for fear of the nervous strain. I've refused to take charge of that summer-school in New York, you know, that would be such an opportunity for me … if I could only sleep! But though I never do anything exciting in the evening … heavens! what nights I have. Black hours of see-
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