"More so," said Harding in his rough voice. "His money gathers and grows like a snowball. But he is beginning to think about enjoying it—he is evidently growing old. He says it is time for him to have a holiday. He never took one for some wonderful time—eighteen years I think it was; but he has not worked quite so hard of late."
"Well, he deserves a little pleasure now."
"I don't know about that. If a man makes himself a slave to money-getting I don't see that he deserves any pleasure. He deserves his money."
The old gentleman laughed. "Let the poor fellow amuse himself a little—if he can. The question is whether he can, after a life of hard work. What is his idea of pleasure?"
"Yachting. He discovered quite lately that he wasn't sea-sick; he hadn't leisure to find it out before. So he took to yachting. He can enjoy his dinner as well on board a boat as anywhere else, he can talk about his yacht, and he can spend any amount of money."
"You haven't any sympathy with his hobby?"
"I? I've no money to spend, and I am sea-sick."
"You are? I remember now," said Mr. Hayes, thoughtfully, "that your grandfather and John Rothwell had a great dislike to the water."
"Ah? It's a family peculiarity? A proud distinction?" Harding laughed quietly, looking away. He was accustomed to laugh at himself and by himself. "It's something to be able to invoke the Rothwell ancestry to give dignity to one's qualms," he said.