While I was reading the letter and meditating on it, with my back to the fire, Dale plunged into the morning's correspondence with an air of enjoyment. That is the astonishing thing about him. He loves work. The more I give him to do the better he likes it. His cronies, who in raiment, manners, and tastes differ from him no more than a row of pins differs from a stray brother, regard a writing-chair as a mediaeval instrument of torture, and faint at the sight of ink. They will put themselves to all kinds of physical and pecuniary inconvenience in order to avoid regular employment. They are the tramps of the fashionable world. But in vain do they sing to Dale of the joys of silk-hatted and patent-leather-booted vagabondage and deride his habits of industry; Dale turns a deaf ear to them and urges on his strenuous career. Rogers, coming in to clear away the breakfast things, was despatched by my young friend to fetch a portfolio from the hall. It contained, he informed me, the unanswered letters of the past fortnight with which he had found himself unqualified to deal. He grasped the whole bundle of correspondence, and invited me to follow him to the library and start on a solid morning's work. I obeyed meekly. He sat down at the big table, arranged the pile in front of him, took a pencil from the tray, and began: “This is from Finch, of the _Universal Review_.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Tell him, my boy, that it's against my custom to breakfast at afternoon tea, and that I hope his wife is well.” At his look of bewilderment I broke into a laugh. “He wants me to write a dull article for his stupid paper, doesn't he?” “Yes, on Poor Law Administration.” “I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do anything these people ask me. Say 'No, no, no, no,' to everybody.” “In Heaven's name, Simon,” he cried, laying down his pencil, “what has come over you?” “Old age,” said I. He uttered his usual interjection, and added that I was only thirty-seven. “Age is a relative thing,” I remarked. “Babes of five have been known to die of senile decay, and I have seen irresponsible striplings of seventy.” “I really think Eleanor Faversham had better come back from Sicily.” I tapped the letter still in my hand. “She's coming.” “I'm jolly glad to hear it. It's all my silly fault that she went away. I thought she was getting on your nerves. But you want pulling together. That confounded place you've been to has utterly upset you.” “On the contrary,” said I, “it has steadied and amplified my conception of sublunary affairs. It has shown me that motley is much more profitable wear than the edged toga of the senator--” “Oh, for God's sake, dry up,” cried young England, “and tell me what answers I'm to give these people!”