'Thanks, Floyd; that's all reasonable enough, and the only reason I don't say yes to it is this: I am a great deal better off as I am. Money would not do me a bit of good--quite the contrary. I like to feel that I have none of that kind of responsibility, and I like to imagine that I must work for a living. Of course, it is nothing more than imagination, for my income supplies me with all I need. But it is good for me to have an occupation, and to feel some sort of obligation to pursue it. I'm naturally prone to the blues--and if I had nothing to do but to lie back and enjoy myself, I should have them all the time. We are constituted differently, that's all. But--thanks, all the same.' Floyd lay calmly back in his chair, and puffed half-a-dozen smoke-wreaths ceiling-wards ere he spoke again. 'If you think,' he then said, 'that I have been doing nothing all these years except sit still and enjoy myself, you are confoundedly mistaken. I have worked like a horse--though I mayn't look like it now. The possession of this fortune has made all the difference between my being an industrious and productive member of the community, and a good-for-nothing, lazy detrimental--as I should have been without it. No, Tom: trust me, riches do not mean idleness: they haven't with me, and they wouldn't with you. And think, old fellow--you have made a man as well as a millionaire of me: you cannot, surely you cannot, mean to leave me under such an infernal weight of obligation. Do be human, Tom. You have been generous all your life; don't begin to be selfish in the worst kind of fashion at this late day--and at my expense!' 'Give me a little time to think, Floyd,' said I, feeling very miserable. 'To-morrow or next day. Remember that I'm an old bachelor, and very much set in my ways.' But the fact was, the new complication about the love-affair, which of course I was unable to explain, made it more than ever difficult for me to entertain Floyd's proposal. I had a wild idea of escaping--hiding myself where no ingenuity could find me out. 'An old bachelor, eh?' exclaimed my friend; 'why, I hope you don't call yourself so very old, for I'm at least a year further gone than you, and I don't consider myself "set" at all. "Ripe" is the fitter word, I take it. But _apropos_ of this, there's something I'd like to say to you, Tom; it's presuming on your friendship, I know, and maybe I ought not to venture. But it's on my mind.' 'Out with it!'