Page:JM Barrie--My lady nicotine.djvu/39

Rh take in a daily paper? To read through columns of public speeches and police cases and murders in Paris is only to squander valuable time. Now, when I left home I promised my father not to waste my time. My father had been very good to me; why, then, should I do that which I had promised him not to do? Then, again, there were the theaters. During the past six months I had spent several pounds on theaters. Was this right? My mother, who has never, I think, been in a theater, strongly advised me against frequenting such places. I did not take this much to heart at the time. Theaters did not seem to me to be immoral. But, after all, my mother is older than I am; and who am I, to set my views up against hers? By avoiding the theaters for the next six months, I am (already), say, three pounds to the good. I had been frittering away my money, too, on luxuries; and luxuries are effeminate. Thinking the matter over temperately and calmly in that way, I saw that I should be thoughtfully saving money, instead of spending it, by buying Romulus and Remus, as I already called them. At the same time, I should be gratifying my father and my mother, and leading a higher and a nobler life.

Even then I do not know that I should have bought the pipes until the six months were up, had I not been driven to it by jealousy. On my life,