“Well, what are you tryin’ to prove anyway?” asked the Teacher, who had seated himself on an egg-crate. His furrowed brow, one closed eye and forefinger resting on his chin, showed that he was struggling hard to catch the thread of the discussion.
“I was jest sayin’ that the best life, the sensiblest life, was the slow easy-goin’ one, ’hen this young man conterdicted me,” said the Loafer.
His air was very condescending and it angered the student. The inquisition just ended had left him in a rather equivocal position, he could see by the way the Patriarch and the Tinsmith nodded their heads.
“You misunderstood me,” he said. “You have shown, I see, that from a purely selfish standpoint, ambition is senseless. In the end the man who works hard is no better off than the man who loafs. But remember there is another call—duty.”
“That’s the idee,” cried the Teacher. “The sense of duty moves the world to——”
“Hol’ on!” the Loafer exclaimed. “Hol’ on! Duty to who?”
“Why, duty to society,” the student, answered. “Every man is endowed with certain faculties, and it is his duty to use those faculties to the best of his ability for the advancement of himself and his fellow-man.”
“Certainly—certainly,” said the pedagogue. “It’s the old parable of the talents all over agin.”
“Yes, they is some argyment in that,” said the Loafer. “Yit they ain’t. Pap allus used to say that too many fellys was speckilatin’ in their talents, an’ ’hen their employer called an accountin’ they was only able to pass in a lot o’ counterfeit coin.”
“But suppose all men sat down and folded their hands and lived as you would have them. What would happen?” asked the college man.