Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/59

 "Better take them so as to make ourselves younger."

"Then the other question."

"How they take us?"

"Yes. We're lucky, in this day and generation, if they take us at all."

"You may be right," assented Randolph ruefully. "Yet there are gleams of hope. The more thoughtful among them have a kind of condescending pity to bestow——"

"And the thoughtless?"

"They can find uses for us. One of the faculty was telling me how he tried to give two or three of his juniors an outing at his cottage over in Michigan. Everything he gave they took for granted. And if anything was lacking they took—exceptions. Monopolized the boats; ignored the dinner-hour Sometimes I think that even the thoughtless are thoughtful in their own way and use us, if we happen to have lands and substance, purely as practical conveniences. I've been almost glad to think that I possess none myself."

"Don't stay here and talk like that. This is one of my blue days."

"I wish I had brought a novelette. Sure you don't want to hear a little more about the Countess of Cas-tlemaine and the rascalities of the Navy Office?"

"No; some other time, when I feel a bit more robust. It isn't every day that the mind can digest such a period with comfort."