Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/59

Rh You see I've got enough to live upon without work, and that 's a fearful drawback to people giving me work. I'm an architect, and I love my trade. But I can't convince people that I'm not a dilettante. I am ashamed to eat the bread of idleness, and yet—here's a question that comes up. Has any man a right, who does not need to work, to enter into close competition with those who do need it?"

Farebrother was very much in earnest by that time. He saw that these nineteenth-century problems had never presented themselves to Letty's simple experience. But they were of vast moment to him. Letty fixed her large, clear gaze upon him very much as if he were a new sort of animal she was studying.

"I thought here, where you are all so rich, you cared for nothing except how to enjoy yourselves."

"Did you? Then you made a huge mistake. Why, I know of men literally wallowing in money who work for the pure love of work. I could work for love of work, too, but I tell you, when I see a poor fellow, with a wife and family to support, slaving over plans and specifications, and then I feel that my competition is making that man's chances con-