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we sat together in his magnificently furnished dining-room. We had lighted our cigars at the silver lamp. The butler had withdrawn. "These cigars we are smoking," my friend suddenly remarked, a propos apparently of nothing, "they cost me five shillings apiece, taking them by the thousand." "I can quite believe it," I answered; "they are worth it." "Yes, to you," he replied, almost savagely. "What do you usually pay for your cigars?" We had known each other years ago. When I first met him his offices consisted of a back room up three flights of stairs in a dingy by-street off the Strand, which has since disappeared. We occasionally dined together, in those days, at a restaurant in Great Portland Street, for one and nine. Our acquaintanceship was of sufficient standing to allow of such a question. "Threepence," I answered. "They work out at about twopence three-farthings by the box." "Just so," he growled; "and your twopenny-three-farthing weed gives you precisely the same amount of satisfaction that this five shilling cigar affords me. That means four and ninepence farthing wasted every time I smoke. I pay my cook two hundred a year. I don't enjoy my dinner as much as when it cost me four shillings, including a quarter flask of Chianti. What is the difference, personally, to me whether I drive to my office in a carriage and pair, or in an omnibus? I often do ride in a bus: it saves trouble. It is absurd wasting time looking for one's coachman, when the conductor of an omnibus that passes one's door is hailing one a few yards off. Before I could afford even buses--when I used to walk every morning to the office from Hammersmith--I was healthier. It irritates me to think how hard I work for no earthly benefit to myself. My money pleases a lot of people I don't care two straws about, and who are only my friends in the hope of making something out of me. If I could eat a hundred-guinea dinner myself every night, and enjoy it four hundred times as much as I used to enjoy a five-shilling dinner, there would be some sense in it. Why do I do it?" I had never heard him talk like this before. In his excitement he rose from the table, and commenced pacing the room. "Why don't I invest my money in the two and a half per cents?" he continued. "At the very worst I should be safe for five thousand a year. What, in the name of common sense, does a man want with more? I am always saying to myself, I'll do it; why don't
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