. . until one day, in some book about Indian
fakirs, I picked up a hint that if this interval of exhaustion were
passed--if I stuck it out--my will might pick up its second wind, so
to speak, and work more strongly than ever. I was curious enough,
anyway, to give it a trial or two. The results didn't amount to
much: but I _did_ discover that I had a rather exceptional capacity
for fasting, and promised myself to practise it further, from time to
time, as an experiment on my own vile body.
"But now we'll come to something more important. In the matter of
thirst I had persevered: being, as you may remember, hot-foot upon
rabies just then and the salivary glands. . . . Well, in the matter
of thirst, I trained myself to do my three days easy without
swallowing a drop. That last night you invited yourself to dinner--
the night I first met Farrell, by the way--you unknowingly ended a
four days' experiment. I told Jimmy Collingwood about it, the
morning he breakfasted with me. . . ."
["I remember Jimmy's telling me something about it, in the taxi," I
put in.
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