It was evident that his friend's mood somewhat nonplussed him,
but his good-humour was unflagging.
"It's the way we're taught at school," he hazarded, genially.
"In all the arithmetics six beats five, and seven beats six."
"They're wrong," Thorpe declared, and then consented
to laugh in a grudging, dogged way at his friend's facial
confession of puzzlement. "What I mean is--what's the good
of piling up money, while you can't pile up the enjoyments
it will buy? What will a million give you, that the fifth
of it, or the tenth of it, won't give you just as well?"
"Aye," said Semple, with a gleam of comprehension in his glance.
"So you've come to that frame of mind, have you?
Why does a man go on and shoot five hundred pheasants,
when he can eat only one?"
"Oh, if you like the mere making of money, I've nothing
more to say," Thorpe responded, with a touch of resentment.
"I've always thought of you as a man like myself,
who wanted to make his pile and then enjoy himself."
The Scotchman laughed joyously. "Enjoy myself! Like you!"
he cried. "Man, you're as doleful as a mute at a laird's
funeral! What's come over you? I know what it is.
You go and take a course of German waters----"
"Oh, that be damned!" Thorpe objected, gloomily. "I tell
you I'm all right. Only--only--God! I've a great notion
to go and get drunk.
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