“You—you have no right to talk to me like this. You—you are forward and—and impertinent. I never met such a young woman.”
“It’s for the good of your soul,” she said, “and because—because I think I’m going to hire you to write editorials and help gather news. Before you start in, you’ve got to revise your notions of the world—and of yourself. If you don’t like people, people won’t like you.”
Evidently he had been giving scant attention to her and plenary consideration to himself. “How much will you pay me?” he asked.
“There you are!... I don’t know. Whatever I pay you will be more than you are worth.”
He was thinking about himself again, and thinking aloud.
“I fancy I should like to be an editor,” he said. “The profession is not without dignity and scholarly qualities——”
“Scholarly fiddlesticks!”
Again he paid her no compliment of attention. “Why shouldn’t one be selfish? What does it matter? What does anything matter? Here we are in this world, rabbits caught in a trap. We can’t escape. We’re here, and the only way to get out of the trap is to die. We’re here with the trap fastened to our foot, waiting to be killed. That’s all. So what does anything matter except to get through it somehow. Nobody can do anything. The greatest man who ever lived hasn’t done a thing but live and die. Selfish? Of course I’m selfish. Nothing interests me but me. I want to stay in the trap with as little pain and trouble as I can manage.... Everything and everybody is futile.... Now you can let me be an editor or you can go along about your business and leave me alone.”
“You have a sweet philosophy,” she said, cuttingly. “If that is all your education has given you, the most ignorant scavenger on the city streets is wiser and better and more valuable to the world than you. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Scavenger!...” His eyes snapped behind his beetle glasses and he frowned upon her terribly. “Now I’m going to be an editor—the silly kind of an editor silly people like. Just to show you I can do it better than they can. I’ll write better pieces about Farmer Tubbs painting his barn red, and better editorials about the potato crop. I’m a better man than any of them, with a better brain and a better education—and I’ll use my superiority to be a better ass than any of them.”