More Leacock

From 'The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society', 1914......

"He drank.  That was all.  There was no excess about it.  Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, of course, began the day with an eye-opener -- and after all, what alert man does not wish his eyes well open in the morning?  He followed it usually just before breakfast with a bracer -- and what wiser precaution can a business man take than to brace his breakfast? On his way to business he generally had his motor stop at the Grand Palaver for a moment, if it was a raw day, and dropped in and took something to keep out the damp.  If is was a cold day he took something to keep out the cold, and if it was one of those clear, sunny days that are so dangerous to the system, he took whatever the bar-tender (a recognised health expert) suggested to tone the system up....Then he was braced and propped and toned up and his eyes had been opened and his brain cleared, till outside of very big business indeed few men were on a footing with him."

So hilarious!  That's definitely how it was. 

"But let it be repeated and carefully understood, -- there was no excess about Mr. Rasselyer-Brown's drinking.  Indeed, whatever he might be compelled to take during the day, and at the Mausoleum Club in the evening, after his return from his club at night Mr. Rasselyer-Brown made it a fixed rule to take nothing.  He might, perhaps, as he passed into the house, step into the dining-room and take a very small drink at the sideboard.  But this he counted as part of the return itself, and not after it.  And he might, if his brain were overly-fatigued, drop down later in the night in his pajamas and dressing-gown when the house was quiet, and compose his mind with a brandy and water.  But this was not really a drink.  Mr. Rasselyer-Brown called it a nip; and of course any man may need a nip at a time when he would scorn a drink."

Leacock is as fresh and relevant today as when he wrote his brilliant observations on life those many years ago.