Perhaps Nosey Gould's beastly little Empire Cigarettes ought only to
be smoked on stilts, or something of that sort. Perhaps Mrs. Duke's
cold leg of mutton would seem quite appetizing at the top of a tree.
Perhaps even my damned, dirty, monotonous drizzle of Old Bill Whisky--"

"Don't be so rough on yourself," said Inglewood, in serious distress.
"The dullness isn't your fault or the whisky's. Fellows who don't--
fellows like me I mean--have just the same feeling that it's all rather
flat and a failure. But the world's made like that; it's all survival.
Some people are made to get on, like Warner; and some people are
made to stick quiet, like me. You can't help your temperament.
I know you're much cleverer than I am; but you can't help having
all the loose ways of a poor literary chap, and I can't help
having all the doubts and helplessness of a small scientific chap,
any more than a fish can help floating or a fern can help curling up.
Humanity, as Warner said so well in that lecture, really consists
of quite different tribes of animals all disguised as men."

In the dim garden below the buzz of talk was suddenly broken
by Miss Hunt's musical instrument banging with the abruptness
of artillery into a vulgar but spirited tune.

Rosamund's voice came up rich and strong in the words of some fatuous,
fashionable coon song:-

"Darkies sing a song on the old plantation,
Sing it as we sang it in days long since gone by."


Inglewood's brown eyes softened and saddened still more as he continued