In the street again, Morphew mentioned that he had taken up photography.
'It gives me something to do, and it takes me out into the open air. This beastly town is the ruin of me, in every way.—Come to my rooms for an hour, will you? I'll show you some attempts; I've only just tried my hand at developing. And it's a long time since we had a talk.'
They made for a Chelsea omnibus and mounted.
'I thought you were never in town at this time,' Morphew resumed. 'I want to get away, but can't afford it; devilish low-water with me. I must have a bicycle. With that and the camera I may just manage to live; often there seems little enough to live for.—Tripcony? Oh, Tripcony's a damned swindler; I've given him up. Speculation isn't quite so simple as I imagined. I made a couple of hundred, though—yes, and lost nearly three.'
The young man's laugh was less pleasant to hear than formerly. Altogether, Rolfe observed in him a decline, a loss of refinement as well as of vitality.
'Why don't you go into the country?' he said. 'Take a cottage and grow cabbages; dig for three hours a day. It would do you no end of good.'
'Of course it would. I wish I had the courage.'
'I'm going to spend the winter in Wales,' said Harvey. 'An out-of-the-world place in Carnarvonshire—mountains and sea. Come along with me, and get the mephitis blown out of you. You've got town disease, street-malaria, lodging-house fever.'
'By Jove, I'll think of it,' replied the other, with a strange look of eagerness. 'But I don't know whether I can. No, I can't be sure. But I'll try.'
'What holds you?'