Page:Dr Adriaan (1918).djvu/50

44 "I never have counted. You used to manage me; and I just did what you told me to."

"Give me your advice now. Haven't we always been pals?"

"Yes, but you were the one with the head."

"There's not much head about me just now. Give me your advice, Daddy."

"You won't take it from me."

"Out with it, all the same!"

"Well, my boy, listen to me: keep something of your life for yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"You're giving it all away. I don't believe it can be done. I believe a man to stand as much in need of a healthy egoism as of bread and water."

"I should say that I was egoist enough."

"No, you're not. You keep nothing for yourself. You'll think it funny of me that I should talk to you like this; but, you see, the older I grow and the more cigarettes I smoke the more I notice that . . ."

"That what?"

"That both your parents have never—considering your character—taken your own happiness into account: Mamma no more than I."

"I don't agree with you."

"It is so, all the same. The years which you spent as a child between your two parents made you an altruist and made your altruism run away with you."

Addie smiled and gazed at his father.

"Well? What are you looking at me for?"

"I'm looking at you, Father . . . because I'm amused to see you so utterly wide of the mark."

"Why?"

"I may have had a touch of altruism in me, but of late years . . ."