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