"When I was a boy," continued Ravenslee absently, "I used to dream of the wonderful things I would do when I was a man—by the way, you're quite sure I'm not boring you—?"
"No, sir—certingly not, sir—indeed, sir!"
"Take another cigar, Brimberly—oh, put it in your pocket, it will do to—er—to add to your collection! But, as I was saying, as a boy I was full of a godlike ambition—but, as I grew up, ambition and all the noble things it leads to, sickened and died—died of a surfeit of dollars! And to-day I am thirty-five and feel that I can't—that I never shall—do anything worth while—"
"But, sir," exclaimed Mr. Brimberly with a bland and reassuring smile, "you are one as don't have to do nothing—you're rich!"
Mr. Ravenslee started.
"Rich!" he cried, and turning, he glanced at Mr. Brimberly, and his square chin looked so very square and his grey eyes so very piercing that Mr. Brimberly, loosing his whisker, coughed again and shifted his gaze to the Persian rug beneath his feet; yet when Young R. spoke again, his voice was very soft and sleepy.
"Rich!" he repeated, "yes, that's just the unspeakable hell of it—it's money that has crippled all endeavours and made me what I am! Rich? I'm so rich that my friends are all acquaintances—so rich that I might buy anything in the world except what I most desire—so rich that I am tired of life, the world, and everything in the world, and have been seriously considering a—er—a radical change. It is a comfort to know that we may all of us find oblivion when we so desire."
"Oblivion!" nodded Mr. Brimberly, mouthing the word sonorously, "oblivion, sir, certingly—my own sentiments exactly, sir—for, though not being a marrying man myself, sir, I regard it with a truly reverent heye and 'umbly suggest that for you such a oblivious change would be—"
"Brimberly," said Young R., turning to stare in lazy wonder, "where in the world are you getting to now?"
Mr. Brimberly coughed and touched a whisker with dubious finger.