One feels it in the blood.

It's six years--more--since I climbed on to the shelf, and I've been quite smug and self-satisfied most of the time.

There's been a twinge of regret every now and then, but nothing I couldn't whistle away.

But now--" his words quickened; he spoke them whimsically, yet passionately, in her ear--"between you and me, I'd give an eye, an ear, or a leg--anything I possess in duplicate--to come off the shelf, and have one more fling.

I'm stiff! I'm stiff! And, ye gods, I'm only four-and-thirty! I always thought I'd go till sixty at least.