y the very way they
walk the city streets. They are prosperous, they imagine. I, strolling
idly through those same city streets, looking at the show, studying
their faces, defied them, and said to myself, "You gentlemen are not
human beings--you are business men." Not that I would tell them this;
they would not understand, though they are guilty of occasional lucid
intervals. They will admit, in a superior tone, that business cuts
them off from a great deal. But it is evident they intend sticking to
the irrefutable logic of the bank-balance. For them there is no
friendship like ours. They could not afford it, bless you. How are
they to know that you won't "do" them or borrow of them? No, no. The
world, for them, is a place where they have a chance of besting you
and me, of getting more money than you or I, of "prospering," as they
call it, at another's expense.

If I say to one of these men, "I want no fortune; I have what I need
now by working for it," he looks at me as though I were stark mad. If
I say, to poor Sandy Jackson, for instance, who has only one lung and
is mad on "getting more business"--if I say to him, "You advise me to
go in for business on my own account, Sandy. Very good. What does that
mean? It means that I must become _dehumanised_, or fail. I must have
no friends who are of no use to me. I must waste no time reading or
writing or dreaming dreams. I must eat no dinners abroad which are not
likely to bring in business. I must toil early and late, go on spare
regimen, drink little, dress uncomfortably, live respectably--for
what, Sandy? For a few hundreds or thousands of pounds. May I let up
then? Oh, no, Sandy, that is the business man's mirage, that letting
up. He never lets up until he is let down--into the tomb. It would be
against his principles. Well, Sandy, I see you're at it and apparently
killing yourself by it, but I wish to be excused. It isn't good
enough. I want my friends, my books, my dreams most of all. Take your
business; I'll to my dreams again."

So, while we sit in the gaudy playhouse, I dream my dreams of the
great books I want to write, the orations I want to deliver, the
lessons I want to teach, and I wonder how long my time of probation
will be. Strange that I should never make any allowance for the
dangerous nature of my calling. This may be my last night ashore for
ever. What of it? Well, it will be a nuisance to leave those books,
lectures, and lessons to be written, given