"Check!"
"Blast!... If one may arrive at the end game—as I certainly can't here, my friend—'tis not unlike old age, a time demanding some coolness and precision and the summary of the ending, which is no simple matter of victory or defeat or draw, I think."
"I like the simile, but I'm not sure living is a game."
"It is not, Reuben. I'm pleased you find the flaw. It will remind you that any simile is a mischancy nag to ride. Ride him easy, perhaps for entertainment only, and be ready to jump off before he blunders into the ditch on the left which is marked reductio ad absurdum. If I said, however, that living is a journey, would that be a simile?"
"No, sir, I call that a fair description, no flight of rhetoric."
"Mm-yas.... Let's see what remains for me here. I will try what the poor Pawn can do, creeping into the breach, but I fear little David hath here no slingshot."
"Well.... Well, I'm afraid he did leave it at home, Mr. Welland, for this is checkmate."
"Ow!"
"Ben would say I had scuttled him, nautical language being ever on his lips these days. He plays carelessly—in chess, I mean. And in living, with the carelessness of generosity. But he'll win his end game."
"So much of what you say this afternoon ends with Ben! He's very close to your heart, is he not?"