Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 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 Mai- lory, that's what the matter with me. I'm frightened to death," he said melodramatically. " What off " 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 w . . heavens! what nights I have. Black hours of seeing myself in a sanitarium, dependent on my brother! I never . . . why, I'm in hell . . . that's what the matter with me, a perfect hell of ignoble terror!" He sat silent, his drawn face turned to the window. The older man looked at him speculatively. When he spoke it was with a cheerful, casual quality in his voice which made the other look up at him surprised. " You don't suppose those great friends of yours, the ne...