Prostration wire, but the Real Estate Man, when Fourchette told this story, asked what it was.
The Nervous Prostration wire was a relic of the time when Donny was not well and had such a spell of peevishness. He growled so much, and made himself so disagreeable to delivery men and visitors, and seemed to have such an appetite for trousers, that everyone got worried about him. They took him over to see a doctor who runs a boarding house for dogs in Sea Cliff, and the doctor felt his pulses. (A dog has four pulses, one in each leg, and he felt them all.) Then the doctor looked at his eyes and his tongue and talked to him, and finally he asked about the conditions of Donny's home life.
Mr. Mistletoe attempted to describe the conditions of Donny's life, as well as one can ever describe such delicate matters to a stranger. He told the doctor about the children, and how Donny's time was spent, and finally the doctor said: "This dog has a kind of nervous prostration. He's not as young as he was, and your children are evidently too lively for him. They tire him out."
Mr. Mistletoe thought that that was quite possible, and said he had sometimes felt that way himself.
