"Is there any phase in life I shan't outgrow, Bertrand?" I asked.
He selected a cigar, pinched it, lit it and blew a cloud of smoke.
"No," he answered at length.
"And what happens at the end of it all?"
"You die."
"Well, what keeps you going? What phase are you in?"
He stared out of the window at the stream of hansoms and omnibuses rolling in a double line east and west.
"The great spectacle of life," he replied, with a wave of the hand. "You see it rather well from the House or the Club. That reminds me, I'd better put your name down. Come and lunch there to-day, and I'll show you the place. Yes, the great movement of men. I'm not tired of that yet. But you've got ideals, you're going to do things, you aren't content to sit and watch—and that's why I'm warning you against the House. There you'll only find jobs and disappointed men and backbiting and a spirit of compromise. However, you wouldn't believe me though I rose from the dead to tell you; a man has to find these things out for himself. You'd better tell the Whips who you are."
I walked down to the Central Office reflecting that Bertrand, to judge by his tone, had perhaps not yet quite escaped the phase of idealism.