Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/65

 Sometimes—his gaze was now full on Paul—you might do a good deal by just acting, living your life, and maintaining a strict silence in regard to it. That might interest a few. Or you might warn your potential disciples mot to live the way you did; if you had faith in your manner of living, that might reasonably be better. But preach? Never!

Paul relinquished the siege. I think, perhaps, he admitted, that you are right.

Right! Nobody is ever right! I haven't pretended that I was right! I haven't said anything that had any right or wrong to it! Right! That would be preaching. I was merely conversing.

Then there's more? Paul brightened.

More! Enough to keep us busy talking through the ages!

Paul mentally noted that apparently there was a superior method, to that which involved interrogation, of getting under this fellow's conception of existence, an alternate approach to an eventual comprehension. In what exactly this method consisted O'Grady had not as yet made clear, but patience was essential in any real adventure, and his present experience seemed to Paul as clear-cut an example of adventure as any substitute that his not too fertile imagination was capable of conceiving.

Silence fell between them now, as the taxi-driver pursued his skilful route, threading dextrously in and out among the heavy motor-trucks and limousines that moved aimfully up and down the narrow