In the smoking-car the conversation turned to the merits and demerits of various ways of preserving health.

One stout, florid man held forth with great eloquence on the subject.  "Look at me!" he said.  "Never a day's sickness in my life, and all due to simple food.  Why, gentlemen," he continued, "from the age of twenty to that of forty I lived an absolutely simple regular life----no effeminate delicacies, no late hours, no extravagances.  Every day, in fact, summer and winter, I was in bed regularly at nine o'clock and up again at five in the morning.  I worked from eight to one, then had dinner--a plain dinner, mark my words: after that, an hour's exercise; then--"

"Excuse me, sir," interrupted the facetious stranger in the corner, "but what were you in jail for?"