"Always belonged to you? Why of course it did,"
he said cheerfully.
The other breathed a cautious prolonged sigh of relief
"You'd better light a fresh one, hadn't you?" he asked,
observing with a kind of contemptuous tolerance the old man's
efforts to ignite a cigar which had more than once unrolled
like a carpenter's shaving in his unaccustomed fingers,
and was now shapelessly defiant of both draught and suction.
Tavender laughed to himself silently as he took a new cigar,
and puffed at the match held by his companion. The air
of innocence and long-suffering meekness was falling rapidly
away from him. He put his shabby boots out confidently
to the fender and made gestures with his glass as he talked.
"My mistake," he declared, in insistent tones, "was in not
turning down science thirty years ago and going in bodily
for business. Then I should have made my pile as you
seem to have done. But I tried to do something of both.
Half the year I was assaying crushings, or running a level,
or analyzing sugars, for a salary, and the other half I
was trying to do a gamble with that salary on the strength
of what I'd learned. You can't ring the bell that way.
You've got to be either a pig or a pup. You can't do both.
Now, for instance, if I'd come to London when you did,
and brought my money with me instead of buying your
concession with it----"
"Why, what good do you suppose you would have done?"
Thorpe interrupted him with good-natured brusqueness.
Pages:
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286