thrown all away for a mechanical habit which he himself did not pretend
to be a passion,--a mere abstract attraction: as though a man should
say, "I care not for the joys or successes of this world. My destiny is
to sit alone all day and count my fingers and toes, count them over and
over and over again. There is not much pleasure in it, and I should be
glad to break off the habit,--but there it is. It is imposed upon me by
a will stronger than mine which I must obey. It is my destiny."

"Yes, idealists!" said Mr. Gerard, presently coming back from his dreams
to his great subject, with a laugh. "That reminds me of a story a
business friend of mine told me the other day. A clerk in his office was
an incorrigible drunkard. He was quite alone in the world, and had no
one dependent upon him. The firm had been lenient to him, and again and
again forgiven his outbreaks. But one morning they called him in and
said: 'Look here, Jones, we have had a great deal of patience with you;
but the time has come when you must choose between the drink and the
office.' To their surprise, Jones, instead of eagerly promising reform,
looked up gravely, and replied, 'Will you give me a week to think it
over, sir? It is a very serious matter.' Drink was all the poor fellow
had outside his drudgery; was it to be expected that he should thus
lightly sacrifice it?--

"But, to talk about something else, your aunt, Mrs. Tipping, who has a
great idea of my literary importance, has a notion that I may be of some
help to you, Mr. Mesurier. Well, I'll tell you the whole extent of my
present literary engagements, and you are perfectly at liberty to laugh.
At the present time I do the sporting notes for the _Tyrian Daily Mail_,
and I write the theological reviews for _The Fleet Street Review_. These
apparently incongruous occupations are the relics of an old taste for
sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for