“I shouldn’t care for very true friends,” said Boy calmly. “They would be sure to interfere with whatever you wanted to do.”
No one vouchsafed a comment on this remark, and Boy went on,—
“Mother says friends are always prying about and bothering you. If you get too much of them like, they are an awful nuisance.”
Still no observation was volunteered by either of the elderly people, or the one young girl, who sat listening to these cutting statements from a lad of sixteen.
“If I had a lot of money—heaps and heaps of money”—continued Boy—“I could do just as I liked. I could leave the Army—go travelling—or do nothing but just amuse myself, which of course would be best of all.”
“You think so?” said the Major. “Well, you would find it a pretty hard task to amuse yourself, if you had no fixed occupation and no friends. You’d go to the devil, as they say, in double-quick time, without so much as a halt by the way.”
Boy laughed, but looked incredulous.
“Work,” pursued the Major sententiously, “is the greatest blessing in the world. If a man has no work to do, he should find some.”
“I don’t see how that is,” said Boy. “People only work in order to have no need to work.”
Miss Letty suddenly rose from her chair. She was looking tired and pale.