Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/144

132 if it were a girl his thoughts wandered to, a man of Keith's type would have said something about her.

He fished in his pocket for a pipe and filled it slowly, as though his mind was not on the task.

"It's a funny thing," he said at length, applying a match to the bowl, "but though some of us go chasing all over the world for money, we rarely have any very clear idea what we want that money for. I don't mean the money we earn for the common necessities of existence, such as shoe-leather and food. We all have to think of that, more or less. But most of us cherish a hope at the back of our brain that somehow, somewhere, we shall run into a fortune. I suppose pleasures such as automobiles and theatres are the dominating motive in the majority of people who are looking for a pile, and such things are all right as far as they go, but they're an intangible sort of happiness to be aiming at. It seems to me that during the last month or two I've been developing more settled convictions on the subject of worldly possessions than I ever had before. Of course I'd like to make a fortune. Any sensible fellow would. But for the first time in my life I'm beginning to see that it isn't the fortune itself that counts so much as the idea of having a definite object in front of one all the time."

"It must be very much more satisfactory to have