"Too lazy to defend yourself against the charge of being lazy?"
"Not at all. The calm repose; that sort of thing—what?"
Mr. Boland's face assumed the patient expression of one misjudged.
"Laziness!" repeated Ferdie sternly. "'Tis a vice that I abhor. Slip me a smoke."
Francis Charles fumbled in the cypress humidor at Ferdie's elbow; he leaned over the table and gently closed Ferdie's finger and thumb upon a cigarette.
"Match," sighed Ferdie.
Boland struck a match; he held the flame to the cigarette's end. Ferdie puffed. Then he eyed his friend with judicial severity.
"Abominably lazy! Every opportunity—family, education—brains, perhaps.
Why don't you go to work?"
"My few and simple wants—" Boland waved his hand airily. "Besides, who am I that I should crowd to the wall some worthy and industrious person?—practically taking the bread from the chappie's mouth, you might say. No, no!" said Mr. Boland with emotion; "I may have my faults, but—"
"Why don't you go in for politics?"