“It is a caustic article against the successful men of the day,” said Reddy; “they have no merit, sir—none. 'T is nothing but luck has placed them where they are, and they ought to be exposed.” He then threw down his pen as he spoke, and, after a silence of some minutes, suddenly put this question to Tom:
“What do you think of the world?”
“'Faith, I think it so pleasant a place,” said Tom, “that I'm confoundedly vexed at being kept out of it by being locked up here; and that cursed bailiff is so provokingly free-and-easy—coming in here every ten minutes, and making himself at home.”
“Why, as for that matter, it is his home, you must remember.”
“But while a gentleman is here for a period,” said Tom, “this room ought to be considered his, and that fellow has no business here—and then his bows and scrapes, and talking about the feelings of a gentleman, and all that—'t is enough to make a dog beat his father. Curse him! I'd like to choke him.”
“Oh! that's merely his manner,” said James.
“Want of manners, you mean,” said Tom. “Hang me, if he comes up to me with his rascally familiarity again, but I'll kick him down stairs.”
“My dear fellow, you are excited,” said Reddy; “don't let these sublunary trifles ruffle your temper—you see how I bear it; and to recall you to yourself, I will remind you of the question we started from, 'What do you think of the world?' There's a general question—a broad question, upon which one may talk with temper and soar above the petty grievances of life in the grand consideration of so ample a subject. You see me here, a prisoner like yourself, but I can talk of the world. Come, be a calm philosopher, like me! Answer, what do you think of the world?”
“I've told you already,” said Tom; “it's a capital place, only for the bailiffs.”
“I can't agree with you,” said James. “I think it one vast pool of stagnant wretchedness, where the malaria of injustice holds her scales suspended, to poison rising talent by giving an undue weight to existing prejudices.”