"I
declare I have never had such extraordinary things said to me as
you have said in the last half-hour."
"Well, I want to know about people," said Jack, "and I think it
pays to ask them. You don't mind, do you? That's the best thing
about you, that I can say what I think to you without putting my
foot in it. But you said you were going to lecture me about my
sins--come on!"
"No," said Howard, "I won't. You are not serious enough to-day, and
I am not vexed enough. You know quite well what I think. There
isn't any harm in you; but you are idle, and you are inquisitive. I
don't want you to be very different, on the whole, if only you
would work a little more and take more interest in things."
"Well," said Jack, "I do take interest--that's the mischief; there
isn't time to work--that's the truth! I shall scrape through the
Trip, and then I shall have done with all this nonsense about the
classics; it really is humbug, isn't it? Such a fuss about nothing.
The books I like are those in which people say what they might say,
not those in which they say what they have had days to invent. I
don't see the good of that. Why should I work, when I don't feel
interested?"
"Because whatever you do, you will have to do things in which you
are not interested," said Howard.
"Well, I think I will wait and see," said Jack. "And now I must be
off. I really have said some awful things to you to-day, and I must
apologise; but I can't help it when I am with you; I feel I must
say just what comes into my head; I must fly; thank you for lunch;
and I truly will do better, but mind only for YOU, and not because
I think it's any good.
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