noble things it leads to, sickened and died--died of a surfeit of
dollars! And to-day I am thirty-five and feel that I can't--that I never
shall--do anything worth while--"

"But, sir," exclaimed Mr. Brimberly with a bland and reassuring smile,
"you are one as don't have to do nothing--you're rich!"

Mr. Ravenslee started.

"Rich!" he cried, and turning, he glanced at Mr. Brimberly, and his
square chin looked so very square and his grey eyes so very piercing
that Mr. Brimberly, loosing his whisker, coughed again and shifted his
gaze to the Persian rug beneath his feet; yet when Young R. spoke again,
his voice was very soft and sleepy.

"Rich!" he repeated, "yes, that's just the unspeakable hell of it--it's
money that has crippled all endeavours and made me what I am! Rich? I'm
so rich that my friends are all acquaintances--so rich that I might buy
anything in the world except what I most desire--so rich that I am tired
of life, the world, and everything in the world, and have been seriously
considering a--er--a radical change. It is a comfort to know that we may
all of us find oblivion when we so desire."

"Oblivion!" nodded Mr. Brimberly, mouthing the word sonorously,
"oblivion, sir, certingly--my own sentiments exactly, sir--for, though
not being a marrying man myself, sir, I regard it with a truly reverent
heye and 'umbly suggest that for you such a oblivious change would be--"

"Brimberly," said Young R., turning to stare in lazy wonder, "where in
the world are you getting to now?"