“Remember, Joe, you’re to run the laundry according to those old rules you used to lay down at Shelly Hot Springs,” he said.  “No overworking.  No working at night.  And no children at the mangles.  No children anywhere.  And a fair wage.”

Joe nodded and pulled out a note-book.

“Look at here.  I was workin’ out them rules before breakfast this A.M.  What d’ye think of them?”

He read them aloud, and Martin approved, worrying at the same time as to when Joe would take himself off.

It was late afternoon when he awoke.  Slowly the fact of life came back to him.  He glanced about the room.  Joe had evidently stolen away after he had dozed off.  That was considerate of Joe, he thought.  Then he closed his eyes and slept again.

In the days that followed Joe was too busy organizing and taking hold of the laundry to bother him much; and it was not until the day before sailing that the newspapers made the announcement that he had taken passage on the Mariposa.  Once, when the instinct of preservation fluttered, he went to a doctor and underwent a searching physical examination.  Nothing could be found the matter with him.  His heart and lungs were pronounced magnificent.  Every organ, so far as the doctor could know, was normal and was working normally.

“There is nothing the matter with you, Mr. Eden,” he said, “positively nothing the matter with you.  You are in the pink of condition.  Candidly, I envy you your health.  It is superb.  Look at that chest.  There, and in your stomach, lies the secret of your remarkable constitution.  Physically, you are a man in a thousand—­in ten thousand.  Barring accidents, you should live to be a hundred.”

And Martin knew that Lizzie’s diagnosis had been correct.  Physically he was all right.  It was his “think-machine” that had gone wrong, and there was no cure for that except to get away to the South Seas.  The trouble was that now, on the verge of departure, he had no desire to go.  The South Seas charmed him no more than did bourgeois civilization.  There was no zest in the thought of departure, while the act of departure appalled him as a weariness of the flesh.  He would have felt better if he were already on board and gone.

The last day was a sore trial.  Having read of his sailing in the morning papers, Bernard Higginbotham, Gertrude, and all the family came to say good-by, as did Hermann von Schmidt and Marian.  Then there was business to be transacted, bills to be paid, and everlasting reporters to be endured.  He said good-by to Lizzie Connolly, abruptly, at the entrance to night school, and hurried away.  At the hotel he found Joe, too busy all day with the laundry to have come to him earlier.  It was the last straw, but Martin gripped the arms of his chair and talked and listened for half an hour.

“You know, Joe,” he said, “that you are not tied down to that laundry.  There are no strings on it.  You can sell it any time and blow the money.  Any time you get sick of it and want to hit the road, just pull out.  Do what will make you the happiest.”