Page:The way of all flesh (IA wayofallflesh01butl).pdf/373

 worse. Indeed, before long I thought him looking so ill that I insisted on his going with me to consult one of the most eminent doctors in London. This gentleman said there was no acute disease but that my young friend was suffering from nervous prostration, the result of long and severe mental suffering, from which there was no remedy except time, prosperity and rest.

He said that Ernest must have broken down later on, but that he might have gone on for some months yet. It was the suddenness of the relief from tension which had knocked him over now.

"Cross him," said the doctor, "at once. Crossing is the great medical discovery of the age. Shake him out of himself by shaking something else into him."

I had not told him that money was no object to us and I think he had reckoned me up as not over rich. He continued:—

"Seeing is a mode of touching, touching is a mode of feeding, feeding is a mode of assimilation, assimilation is a mode of recreation and reproduction, and this is crossing—shaking yourself into something else and something else into you."

He spoke laughingly, but it was plain he was serious. He continued:—

"People are always coming to me who want crossing, or change, if you prefer it, and who I know have not money enough to let them get away from London. This has set me thinking how I can best cross them even if they cannot leave home, and I have made a list of cheap London amusements which I recommend to my patients; none of them cost more than a few shillings or take more than half a day or a day."

I explained that there was no occasion to consider money in this case.

"I am glad of it," he said, still laughing. "The homoeopathists use aurum as a medicine, but they do not give it in large doses enough; if you can dose your young friend with this pretty freely you will soon bring him round. How-