He remembered from botanical days Nasturtium officinale. That was cress, but nasturtiums were of the same family. The boys in the classes had always called nasturtiums the “official nose twister” and wasn’t it like anything doing business under the title of Black German to select for an especial favourite an “official nose twister”? This and other whimsies began to occupy his mind.
When he reached the house, he went straight to the bathroom for a shower, applied fresh dressings, and clothed himself, and by that time Margaret had brought his lunch. After he had eaten he wandered about the grounds for the twenty minutes prescribed and then deliberately lay down on the Master’s bed and to the music of the rhythmic breaking of the waves he slept another hour. From that hour he came to a brimming glass of cold orange juice. As regularly he took the tomato juice in the morning, and instead of either tea or coffee, he drank milk with his meals. When he had finished his nap, he did as much work in the garden as he could do without tiring himself. Then he went to the bookshelves, but in his new resolve to fight to be of some good in the world, he passed by the tempting volumes of romance and Ancient Natural History. He laughed at them and talked to them and repeated in their faces rich phrases from their unique pages.
“The bees pluck their young from the air and place them in cells, do they? The honey falls from the heavens, does it? The best bees are small, round and variegated, are they?”
