Among the few exceptions was Horne Fisher, who
had a curious capacity for talking to almost anybody about almost
anything.
"Studying botany, or is it archaeology?" inquired Grayne. "I shall
never come to the end of your interests, Fisher. I should say that
what you don't know isn't worth knowing."
"You are wrong," replied Fisher, with a very unusual abruptness, and
even bitterness. "It's what I do know that isn't worth knowing. All
the seamy side of things, all the secret reasons and rotten motives
and bribery and blackmail they call politics. I needn't be so proud
of having been down all these sewers that I should brag about it to
the little boys in the street."
"What do you mean? What's the matter with you?" asked his friend.
"I never knew you taken like this before."
"I'm ashamed of myself," replied Fisher. "I've just been throwing
cold water on the enthusiasms of a boy."
"Even that explanation is hardly exhaustive," observed the criminal
expert.
"Damned newspaper nonsense the enthusiasms were, of course,"
continued Fisher, "but I ought to know that at that age illusions
can be ideals. And they're better than the reality, anyhow. But
there is one very ugly responsibility about jolting a young man out
of the rut of the most rotten ideal.
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