And then if I'm good
and not too bright they'll raise me to 250 pounds in a couple of years'
time, and so it'll go on--nothing but fug, and dinge, and skimping, and
planning--with a fortnight at the seaside once a year or a run over to
Paris. I suppose it was good enough for our grandfathers,
Stonehouse--this just keeping alive? But it didn't seem good enough to
me. Don't you feel like that sometimes--when you think of the time when
you'll be able to stick M.D., or whatever it is, after your name--as
though, after all, it didn't matter a brace of shakes?"
Robert Stonehouse roused himself from his lounging attitude and thrust
his hands deep into his trousers pockets. There was a nip in the wind,
and he had no overcoat.
"No. When I've got through this next year I shall feel that I've climbed
out of a black pit and that the world's before me--to do what I like
with."
"Well--you're different." Cosgrave sighed, but not unhappily. "You're
going to do what you want to do, and I expect you'll be great guns at it.
I dare say if I were to play the piano all day long--decently, you know,
as I do sometimes, inside me at any rate--and get money for it, I'd think
it worth while---- But it takes a lot to make one feel that way about
a Government office."
His voice was quenched by a sudden rush of traffic--a tram that jangled
and swayed, a purring limousine full of vague, glittering figures, and a
great belated lorry lumbering in pursuit like an uncouth participant in
some fantastic race.
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