Page:Kipps.djvu/338

326 below them, or a country or place somewhere, that is really safe and happy. The fact is, Society is one body, and it is either well or ill. That's the law. This society we live in is ill. It's a fractious, feverish invalid, gouty, greedy and ill-nourished. You can't have a happy left leg with neuralgia, or a happy throat with a broken leg. That's my position, and that's the knowledge you'll come to. I'm so satisfied of it that I sit here and wait for my end quite calmly, sure that I can't better things by bothering—in my time, and so far as I am concerned, that is. I'm not even greedy any more—my egotism's at the bottom of a pond, with a philosophical brick around its neck. The world is ill, my time is short and my strength is small. I'm as happy here as anywhere."

He coughed and was silent for a moment, then brought the index finger around to Kipps again. You've had the opportunity of sampling two grades of society, and you don't find the new people you're among much better or any happier than the old?"

"No," said Kipps, reflectively. "No. I 'aven't seen it quite like that before, but. No. They're not."

"And you might go all up the scale and down the scale and find the same thing. Man's a gregarious beast, a gregarious beast, and no money will buy you out of your own time—any more than out of your own skill. All the way up and all the way down the scale there's the same discontent. No one is quite sure where they stand, and everyone's fretting. The