'Yes, I think I will. Now, take Mrs. Palmer. She works at pleasure in a way few people in this island work at business. It is her life's work to be gay. She doesn't like gaiety really; it isn't natural to her. But she, by the laws of her nature, which prevent her loafing, works at gaiety just as her husband works at amassing millions. They can neither of them stop. They don't enjoy it any more than a person with St. Vitus's dance enjoys twitching; simply they have lost control of their power to sit still. Now, in England we have lost a good deal; we are falling behind, I am told, in most things, but we still have that power--the power of tranquillity. I am inclined to think it is worth something. But you will go to America, and come back and tell me.' Ginger lay back on the grass and tilted his straw hat over his eyes after this address. 'Ginger, I've never heard you say so much on end,' remarked Sybil; 'have you been getting it up?' 'I never get things up, but I scent danger,' replied Ginger. 'I am afraid you and Bertie will come back quite different. You will always be wanting to do something; that is a weakness.' 'I don't agree with you,' said Sybil. 'That's all right. If people say they agree with me, I always think I must have said something stupid. What don't you agree with me about?' 'About our power of sitting still. Look at the season in London. All the time we are doing exactly what you say Americans, as opposed to us, do. We make a business of pleasure; we rush about after gaiety, when we are not naturally gay; we----' 'Sybil, you are talking about three or four thousand people among whom you live. I hope you don't think that a few hundred people like that mean England.' 'They include almost all well-known English people.' 'Well known to whom? To themselves. No, that sleepy little misty town down there is just as important a part of England as the parish of St. James's. The parish of St. James's is the office of the company. The people there do the talking, and see after the affairs of the shareholders, and play a very foolish game called politics. They are mere clerks and officials.' 'Well, but as regards the pursuit of gaiety,' said Sybil, 'nobody can be more senseless than you or I, Ginger.' 'Oh, I know we are absurd; you are more absurd than I, though, because you are going to America.' 'You seem to resent it.' 'Not in the least. It is ridiculous to resent what anybody else chooses to do, so long as it is not a personal attack on one's self. That is the first maxim in my philosophy of life.' 'Published? I shall get it.' 'No; it will be some day. It begins with a short history of the world from the days of Adam, and then the bulk of the book draws lessons from the survey. But that is the first lesson. Let everybody go to the devil in his own way. Your way is by the White Star Line.' 'I don't think you know what you are talking about, Ginger,' said his brother. 'I'm sure I don't,' said Ginger cheerfully.