Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/52

 "Your life? No—my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log. Let me work."

"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken all—all—"

"You have left what you loved best of all—your sloth. Lie down—and take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say—lie down, and let me work."

The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass; and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces. "Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already. Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours—the animal. You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese twins."

"One of them took to drink," murmured the inferior Half. "What if I were to follow his example?"

"You will not. You do not dare?" But his blanched face showed his terror at the very thought.

first step was achieved. The first class was gained. Challice of Pembroke was second classic; he might have been senior but for the unaccountable laziness of his first year. He was University scholar, medallist, prizeman; he was one of the best speakers at the Union. He was known to be ambitious. He was not popular, however, because he was liable to strange fits of dulness; those who met him wandering about the banks of the river found him apparently unable to understand things; at such times he looked heavy and dull; it was supposed supposed that he was abstracted; men respected his moods, but these things do not increase friendships. Challice the Animal and Challice the Intellect weighed each other down.

They left Cambridge, they went to London, they took lodgings. "You are now so different from me in appearance," said the Intellect, "that I think we may leave off the usual precautions. Go about without troubling what I am and what I am doing. Go about and amuse yourself, but be careful."

The victim of sloth obeyed; he went about all day long in heavy, meaningless fashion; he looked at things in shops; he sat in museums, and dropped off to sleep. He strolled round squares. At luncheon and dinner time he found out restaurants where