"Get your life down to routine--eliminate surprises. Arrange things so that, when you get up in the morning, you'll know exactly what is going to happen to you during the day--and the next day and the next. I don't say it's funny--it ain't. But it's better than being hit on the head by a brick-bat. That's why I always take my meals at this restaurant. I know just how much onion they put in things--if I went to the next place I shouldn't. And I always take the same streets to come here--I've been doing it for ten years now. I know at which crossings to look out--I know what I'm going to see in the shop-windows. It saves a lot of wear and tear to know what's coming. For a good many years I never did know, from one minute to another, and now I like to think that everything's cut-and-dried, and nothing unexpected can jump out at me like a tramp from a ditch." He paused calmly to knock the ashes from his cigar, and Garnett said with a smile: "Doesn't such a plan of life cut off nearly all the possibilities?" The old gentleman made a contemptuous motion. "Possibilities of what? Of being multifariously miserable? There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time." "That was Schopenhauer's idea, I believe," the young man said, pouring his wine with the smile of youthful incredulity. "I guess he hadn't the monopoly," responded his friend. "Lots of people have found out the secret--the trouble is that so few live up to it." He rose from his seat, pushing the table forward, and standing passive while the waiter advanced with his shabby overcoat and umbrella. Then he nodded to Garnett, lifted his hat politely to the broad-bosomed lady behind the desk, and passed out into the street.