accidentally, on equal terms, I might
like it, but not otherwise. But, leaving that point out of account, I
think that the career which Berkeley proposes to himself would turn
out very hollow. It would result in the superficial gratification of
the curiosity and the senses; and, as soon as the novelty got rubbed
off, what is there left?"

"So then," said Berkeley, "you've swung into line with Armstrong, have
you? You mean to plod along in some professional rut too. What has got
into all our idealists?"

"Not by any means," answered Clay. "Armstrong talks about
independence, and yet destines himself to the worst kind of
dependence--slavery to money-getting. Most people, it seems to me,
spend the best part of their lives not in living, but in getting the
means to live. We'll give Armstrong, say twenty years, to lay up
enough money to retire on and begin to live. What sort of a position
will he be in then to enjoy his independence? His nature will have got
so subdued to what it works in that the only safety for him will be to
keep on at the law."

"All right! Then I'll keep on," interjected Armstrong.

"What the devil do _you_ mean to do then?" asked Berkeley of Clay.

"I don't quite know yet," replied the latter. "I shall 'loaf and
invite my soul' whenever I feel like it. I shall live as I go along,
and not postpone it till I am forty. I sha'n't put myself into any
mill that will grind me just so much a day. I need my leisure too
badly for that. I presume I shall spend most of my time at first in
reading and walking. Then, whenever I think of anything to write I
shall write it, and if I can sell what I write to some publisher or
other, so much the better. If not, go on as before."

"Meanwhile, where will your bread and butter come from?" asked
Armstrong.

"Oh, I sha'n't starve. I can get some sort of hack work--something
that won't take much of my time, and which I can do with my left hand.
But the great point, after all, is to make your wants simple; to live
like an Arab, content with a few dates and a swallow from the gourd.
'Lessen your denominator.' It's easier than raising your numerator,
and the quotient is the same."

"No, it's not the same," Berkeley retorted. "Renunciation and
enjoyment are not the same. It makes a heap of difference whether you
have a thing or simply do without it. The plain living and high
thinking philosophy may do for Clay, whose mind to him a kingdom is;
but a fellow like me, whos