Three Men in a Boat

Book Excerpt : …down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back.He said he didn’t keep it.I said:”You are a chemist?”He said:”I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me.”I read the prescription. It ran:”1 lb. beefsteak, with 1 pt. bitter beer every 6 hours. 1 ten-mile walk every morning. 1 bed at 11 sharp every night. And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand.”I followed the directions, with the happy result – speaking for myself – that my life was preserved, and is still going on.In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”What I suffer in that way no…