Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/12

6 "Oh, ask another!" snapped Bottiger, who was in one of his shorter tempers. The wind was still in the east.

I said nothing. When the good New England ancestry gets a grip on Chelubai and fills him up to the brim with the real and earnest, it is best to let him unload in his own way.

He looked from one to the other of us mournfully. I looked steadily and ruefully at the three sovereigns, the four shillings, the sixpence and the seven halfpennies which I had idly piled in a neat column on the table, and which, thanks to a week's had luck at Bridge, had to last me for sixteen days. I gazed at them steadily, for I did not mean to have my eye caught by Chelubai. With equal resolution, Bottiger scowled out of the window at the myriad pigeons which disport themselves in the King's Bench Walk.

Then Chelubai began:

"Look at our lives—just wasted," he said. "Here we are, young, active, brainy, and we waste all our powers in unprofitable amusements. Look at me: I rise in the morning, I eat a large and varied breakfast and read the paper. Then I go down to the garage and look over my cars. If it's not too wet and muddy, I drive out thirty miles and back to get an appetite for a large and varied lunch. Then I play Bridge all the afternoon to get an appetite for a large and varied