d so on, from men
who are disposed to be good to him, and who see how he can be of use to
them--and in that way he can do something for himself. But there is the
difference: you can't do these things, or you think you can't, which
is the same thing. You're all fenced in; you're surrounded by
notice-boards, telling you that you mustn't walk this way or look that
way; that you mustn't say this thing or do the other. Now your
friend down ahead there--Miss Madden--she doesn't take much stock
in notice-boards. In fact, she feeds the gulls, simply because she's
forbidden to do it. But you--you don't feed any gulls, and yet you're
annoyed with yourself that you don't. Isn't that the case? Haven't I
read you right?"

She seemed to have submitted to his choice of a topic. There was no
touch of expostulation in the voice with which she answered him. "I see
what you think you mean," she said.

"Think!" he responded, with self-confident emphasis. "I'm not
'thinking.' I'm reading an open book. As I say, you're not
contented--you're not happy; you don't try to pretend that you are.
But all the same, though you hate it, you accept it. You think that you
really must obey your notice-boards. Now what I tell you you ought to do
is to take a different view. Why should you put up all this barbed
wire between yourself and your friends? It doesn't do anybody else any
good--and it does you harm. Why, for example, should Plowden be free to
take things from me, and you not?"

She glanced at him, with a cold half-smile in her eye. "Unfortunately I
was not asked to join your Board."

He pressed his lips tightly together, and regarded her meditatively as
he turned these words over in his mind. "What I'm doing for Plowden,"
he said with slow vagueness meanwhile, "it isn't so much because he's on
the Board. He's of no special use to me there. But he was nice to me at
a time when that meant everything in the world to me--and I don't forget
things of that sort. Besides, I like him--and it pleases me to let him
in for a share of my good fortune. See? It's my way of enjoying myself.
Well now, I like you too, and why shouldn't I be allowed to let you in
also for a share of that good fortune? You think there's a difference,
but I tell you it's imaginary--pure moonshine. Why, the very people
whose opinion you're afraid of--what did they do themselves when the
South African craze was on? I'm told that the scum of the earth had
only to own some Chartere