"Mean? What I say, my dear Beetle—every word of it! What's the use of being honest? Look at me. Look at my shirt-cuffs, that I've got to trim every morning like my nails; look at my trousers, as I saw you looking at 'em just now. Those bags at the knees are honesty; and honesty's rapidly wearing them through on an office stool. I'm as poor as a rat in a drain: it's all honesty, and I've had about enough of it. Think of the fellow who walked off with his fortune this morning, and then think of me. Wouldn't you like to be in his shoes? No? My stars, you don't know what it is to live, Beetle; honest idiots like us never do. But I'm going to turn it up. If one can play at that game, two can; why not three? Come on, Beetle; make a third, and we'll rob another bank to-morrow!"
"You're joking," said I, and this time I returned his smile. "Still, if I was going in for that sort of thing, Deedes, I don't know who I'd rather have on my side than you."
His smile went out like a light.
"Will you go in for it?" he cried. "I'm joking far less than you think. My life's a sordid failure. I'm sick of it and ready for a fling. Will you come in?"
"No," I said. "I won't."
And we looked each other steadily in the eyes, until he led me back to laughter with as much ease as he had lengthened my face.
"All right, old Beetle!" said he. "I won't chaff any more—not that it was all chaff by any means. I sometimes feel like that, and so would you in my place. Bunked from school! In disgrace at home! Sent out here to be got rid of, sent to blazes in cold blood! The things I've done for a living during these ten years—this is the most respectable, I can tell you that. It's the respectability drives me mad."
His bitter voice, the lines upon his face, his grey hairs at twenty-eight (they were not confined to his moustache), all appealed to me with equal and irresistible force; my hand went out to him, and with it my heart.
"I am so sorry, Deedes," said I nervously. "If a fiver or two—yes, you must let me! For the sake of the old school!"