“No. I was working.”
“Don’t overwork, old man. Don’t urge the willing steed too fast and furious. I think we are all inclined to do that nowadays. Faster and faster physical and mental locomotion seems the order of the day.”
“And that’s how you rake in the guineas, Neeburg. You shouldn’t grumble. But I’m as strong as a horse. Work doesn’t hurt me. Thank God, I inherited a good constitution from my father.”
“My dear fellow, the strongest horse, if you overwork him, will sometimes go lame. You’ve been working very hard the last couple of years. Keep things in their proper proportions—that’s the secret of life and happiness—proportion!”
“Ah!” said Image briskly, “that’s very true, Fritz, only we usually learn that secret when it’s too late and everything is out of proportion.”
“Proportion!” said the host quickly. “How can you keep a sense of proportion nowadays? Look at me. When you start in the legal profession the proportion is on the wrong side. You have nothing to do except to wear out the leather chairs at your chambers. Get a move on and a few eyes directed to you, and you are very soon swamped with work. And if a man doesn’t work for all he is worth with a singleness of aim and ambition between twenty-five and forty, he will never arrive. You have to keep your nose to the grindstone or success will pass you by. It’s all very well for doctors to talk of moderation and a sense of proportion, but how can you be moderate? Life is immoderate nowadays.”
“You mean that a man’s ambitions and wants are immoderate,” returned Neeburg.
Jack Iverson, who was quite frankly out of the conversation, tried to contribute his quota. “I say, what’s the good of spending all the days of your youth swotting?” he said in his rather rich, lazy voice. “The game isn’t worth the candle.”
Gilbert went on a trifle impatiently. “The thing to do nowadays is to specialize. Make up your mind what you can do best, and what you want, and hang on like a bulldog till you get it.”