“I haven’t got over being idle yet. It’s not a year since I came into my fortune. Perhaps—indeed I hope—that I may settle down to work again.”
“I’m sure I hope so, too, old fellow,” he answered gravely. “When a man has once tasted the pleasure of real work, especially work that taxes the mind and the imagination, the world seems only a poor place without it.”
“Like the wurrld widout girruls for me, or widout bog for his ’an’r!” said Andy, grinning as he turned round on his seat.
Dick Sutherland, I was glad to see, did not suspect the joke. He took Andy’s remark quite seriously, and said to me:—
“My dear fellow, it is delightful to find you so interested in my own topic.”
I could not allow him to think me a savant. In the first place he would very soon find me out, and would then suspect my motives ever after. And again, I had to accept Andy’s statement, or let it appear that I had some other reason or motive—or what would seem even more suspicious still, none at all; so I answered:—
“My dear Dick, my zeal regarding bog is new; it is at present in its incipient stage in so far as erudition is concerned. The fact is, that although I would like to learn a lot about it, I am at the present moment profoundly ignorant on the subject.”
“Like the rest of mankind!” said Dick. “You will hardly believe that although the subject is one of vital interest to thousands of persons in our own country—one in which national prosperity is mixed up to a large extent—one which touches deeply the happiness and material prosperity of a large section of Irish people, and so helps to mould their political action, there are hardly any works on the subject in existence.”
“Surely you are mistaken,” I answered.
“No! unfortunately, I am not. There is a Danish book, but it is geographically local; and some information can be derived from the Blue Book containing the report of the International Commission on turf-cutting, but the special authorities are scant indeed. Some day, when you want occupation, just you try to find in any library, in any city of the world, any works of a scientific character devoted to the subject. Nay more! try to find a fair share of chapters in scientific books devoted to it. You can imagine how devoid of knowledge we are, when I tell you that even the last edition of the ‘Enclycopædia Britannica’ does not contain the heading ’bog.’”