"Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my mood. It was gray and dark, and it rained all the time, and the sea slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast...."
He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir Mallaby's attention had returned to the letter.
"Oh, what's the good of answering the dashed thing at all?" said Sir Mallaby. "Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that they have got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than Goole, and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, Eggshaw, Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him for ten thousand."
"How like a woman!"
Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir Mallaby took no notice of it whatever.
"... If you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam. Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a conference and can see nobody for half an hour."
When Miss Milliken had withdrawn, Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of the period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring silently at him.
"I'm glad you're back, Sam," he said at length. "I want to have a talk with you. You know, it's time you were settling down. I've been thinking about you while you were in America, and I've come to the conclusion that I've been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young man. You're getting on. I don't say you're senile, but you're not twenty-one any longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver. You've got to remember that life is--dash it! I've forgotten it again."
He broke off and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. "Miss Milliken, kindly repeat what you were saying just now about life.... Yes, yes, that's enough!" He put down the instrument. "Yes, life is real, life is earnest," he said, gazing at Sam seriously, "and the grave is not our goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. In fact, it's time you took your coat off and started work."
"I am quite ready, father."
"You didn't hear what I said," exclaimed Sir Mallaby with a look of surprise. "I said it was time you began work."