There were definite reasons why he should have pleaded a headache or influenza, or any lie, and have gone away before his second dance with her.
"The Literary Sense"
E. Nesbit
What beats me is why you don't up and shoot all children sick with tyfust and grown people ailing with influenza!
"Tales from the Veld"
Ernest Glanville
Fogs and suffocation, rain and muddy boots, slush and colds, sleet and influenza, all combine to make a dreary mackintosh and umbrella existence, which you can vary in-doors by shivering before fires that won't burn.
"With Edge Tools"
Hobart Chatfield-Taylor