"Thank Heaven!" said my dear mother, and I was not pleased.
Says my sister:
"Do you know, he's actually stolen Leah's photograph, that she gave me for my birthday. He asked me for it and I wouldn't give it him—and it's gone!"
Then I washed and put on my work‑a‑day clothes, and went straight to Barge Yard, Bucklersbury, and made myself a bed on the floor with my great‑coat, and slept all day.
Oh heavens! what a dull book this would be, and how dismally it would drag its weary length along, if it weren't all about the author of Sardonyx!
But is there a lost corner anywhere in this planet where English is spoken (or French) in which The Martian won't be bought and treasured and spelt over and over again like a novel by Dickens or Scott (or Dumas)—for Josselin's dear sake! What a fortune my publishers would make if I were not a man of business and they were not the best and most generous publishers in the world! And all Josselin's publishers—French, English, German, and what not—down to modern Sanscrit! What millionaires—if it hadn't been for this little busy bee of a Bob Maurice!
Poor Barty! I am here! à bon chat, bon rat!
And what on earth do I want a fortune for? Barty's dead, and I've got so much more than I need, who am of a frugal mind—and what I've got is all going to little Josselins, who have already got so much more than they need, what with their late father and me; and my sister, who is a widow and childless, and "riche à millions" too! and cares for nobody in all this wide world but little Josselins, who don't care for money in the least, and would sooner work for their living—even break stones on the road—anything sooner than loaf and laze and loll through life. We all have to give most of it away—not that I need proclaim it from the house‑tops! It is but a dull and futile hobby, giving away to those who deserve; they soon leave off deserving.
How fortunate that so much money is really wanted by people who don't deserve it any more than I do; and who, besides, are so weak and stupid and lazy and honest—or so incurably dishonest—that they can't make it for themselves! I have to look after a good many of these people. Barty was fond of them, honest or not. They are so incurably prolific; and so was he, poor dear boy! but, oh, the difference! Grapes don't grow on thorns, nor figs on thistles!