BED'S THE PLACE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 272, 4 May 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

BED'S THE PLACE.

A TIP FOll TIRED WORKERS,

A man said to mo tho other day, " Life has iß'Como a drab affair." (writes an oxpert in tho "Da'ly Mail'') "All work and no play makes Jack a. dull boy I went down to my club last week, and found only four men golfing They crept round tho course like murderers with bloodhounds after them My caddie was .in old man of about SO; and all the time he swore at the weather under his breatn..

"At tho eighth hole where a road runs near the green, two o'd ladies stopped their pony trap and hissed out "Slacker" to me despite my •">() years. I was so unnerved at tho loneliness ol tho course, the toothless execrations of the old caddie, and the attack of the (;let ladies that I went round in 130. I am working twelve hours da'ly for six days a week. As a matter of fact, lam overworked. I wonder what the cure is?"

"I can tell vnu." I answered. "What is it?" ' "Bed." "Bed!" lie .snorted contemptuously I'm not ill. I'm physically sound.' 1

"Only amateurs stay in bed when they are ill," I remarked. "Experts stay in bed when they are well. If every hard worker took a, day in bed once a fortnight, the doctors would starve, the national output would be doubled."

"Paradox," he retorted angrily, "the most insincere form of humour. I come to you with my troubles, ask your advice. and vou talk rubbish."

"I am quite serious," I answer,"nl. "You, on the other hand, are displaying the familiar symptoms of a man who never takes a day in bed—uerviness, touchiness and 'edginess.' You are overworked, stale with the world. Half the people one meets nowadays are in the same condition. I was like it myself until I discovered tho great bed cure."

"Bed!" he repeated querulously. "What a morbid recreation! Who ever thinks erf bed except a.s a place to slcepu in?" "That's just the mistake," I interposed. "What can you do all day in your blessed bed?" lie. continued. "Eat, drink, think, smoke, play with puzzles, read books, sleep or look into your past sins?"

" A little of each of those delights, but no puzzles. There are no puzzles of any sort for the happy man who takes a day in bed. Everything solves itself. All worries and troubles disappear. The world vanishes. The war vanishes. Even your own house vanishes. Every frequent bedder-out (to give us followers of this superb hobby a name) knows that curious phenomenon of the non-existence of everything and everyl>ody except his bedroom, his l>ed and himseJf. The bedroom door opens on to nowhere. The stairs descend into a. void . When your wife Wrings up food and comforts (don't forget to take plenty of lood, something nourishing every three hours is tho best prescription) she ascends from nowhere; she descends again into Tophet, for all you care. Tho true art of bcdding-cut i.s to be utterly selfish. The bedder-out who thinks about anybody but himself on his day in bed is a wretched amateur."

DELICIOUS AND INSPIRING

The depressed man became interested. "I couldn't keep my wife out of the room. In the morning she would start worrying, thinking me unwell. In the afternoon sho would keep coming in telling me tlia.t I am lazy: in the evening she would sit by the bed to reproach me with the loneliness of her life. My wife cannot bear to be separated from me."

"Of course," I murmured sympathetically, "if you are unhappily married."

" Unhappily?" he retorted, "who says my marriage is unhappy?" \\ r e arc devoted to each other."

"I won't discuss it," T said. "It appears to be an unhappy marriage from the point of view of the expert bodder out. Tue first rule of liedding out in not to allow anyone to disturb you, or talk to you, or even to outer the room except to bring nourishment, coal, matches, tobacco, pipes, books, and, pehraps towards the vesper hour a tantalus and a siphon. A wife in and out of the room except on these errands (I shuddered), would be ruinous to the cure. Remember that, first of all, it is a rest cure. "It sounds rather dull.'' he grunted, " all day in bed!'' "Dull!' I cried. "A day in bed is the most delicious, inspiring, invigorating, recuperating, rejuvenating tonic in the world. It is the cunning secret of half the great geniuses and nearly all tho great workers, organisers and discoverers. Do you know th.it all the biggest things that have ever been done in this world have been planned out m beds? You talk of 'dullness'. Do you know that the greatest humorist who ever lived "rote all his works in bed. Mark Twain practically lived iu bed. His study was a mattress, his desk a counterpane."

"Well," argued the gloomy man doggedly, "what about the 'l/.iziest Man on Earth' r Ho was constantly in the papers before the war. He never got out of bed. Nobody could g>t him out. He was summoned for not maintaining himself. He hadn t a penny in the world, as the result of lied. Would you put him up as a prize cure!'"

H KS Tl\(i I HF. NECK

" The ih;iii you are (-peaking of," I said revert ntly. "should have credit for I'i courage, liis persistence, lii.s martyrdom to a. noble creed. Hut lie carried il too fai': lie made a vice out of virtue. Il lie has departed hence, may heaven re>t his hones as In* rented them liimsell on earth. Don't argue any more. liy the 'day ill hed' cure. Brighton isn't in it, jor a tonic. Skegi: '.-s 1 ' Bracing' It's more bracing than the t ip of Mont Blanc. Take onlv tin' physiological aspect of the dav in led. The doctors know it, but they arc net .such fools as to tell ii. to you. . Vj k yoiir-ell a question. When von ,iie tired, where do you fee! th l tiredness most."

Ife felt vaguely lii.s forehead, his 11 li 11 is, hi-, hack ; nis exploratory hand stopped eventually at the hack of his in ik. ■' Here, I think." he -aid.

"Ah, just so!" I cried triumphantlv. Men rest their backs, their lees, their arms now often do thev rc-t, their lle.'-l'.s. J I lie whole Weight ol their eraniiins and their iirains i s poised on their locks. Ih i central seat ol thought is just above the back of the neck. The expert, bedder-out rests his neck : he wriggles ;• pillow under it. and support i ii. And how it makes his grateful brain respond! When I t.ake a dav in bed my brain works like a. knitting lie'die. I tlirik i nt things that are tangles when lam out of b.sl 1 plan thing* t/ial. I would ne\ er tliini; of out. '•I bed. Ideas flow in bed like rivcis. In bed I can detach my.-elf ;•<- I never i> out in the world. I eyt persiie.i----h; ill life that I never seewheii I ha\e lev clothe- oil. I revel in the -ilenee, 1 e solitude, the fepo-e. I d'p into Ixxil s. .11 i- not tobacco I -moke when