In fact, in the matter of illness, he was always a most prosaic, unromantic fellow, and never indulged in any of the euphonious and interesting ailments.

In all his life, I believe, he never went in for anything but the mumps--of all complaints the least interesting--and, may be, an occasional headache.
However, all this is a digression.

We at length reached London, and Derrick took a room above mine, now and then disturbing me with nocturnal pacings over the creaking boards, but, on the whole, proving himself the best of companions.
If I wrote till Doomsday, I could never make you understand how the burning of his novel affected him--to this day it is a subject I instinctively avoid with him--though the re-written 'At Strife' has been such a grand success.

For he did re-write the story, and that at once.
He said little; but the very next morning, in one of the windows of our quiet sitting-room, often enough looking despairingly at the grey monotony of Montague Street, he began at 'Page I, Chapter I,' and so worked patiently on for many months to re-make as far as he could what his drunken father had maliciously destroyed.

Beyond the unburnt paragraph about the attack on Mondisfield, he had nothing except a few hastily scribbled ideas in his note-book, and of course the very elaborate and careful historical notes which he had made on the Civil War during many years of reading and research--for this period had always been a favourite study with him.
But, as any author will understand, the effort of re-writing was immense, and this, combined with all the other troubles, tried Derrick to the utmost.