"Is it? Well, your experience don't reach far. You've come to the place where God's waiting for you now--waiting, and none too pleased at what you bring afore Him. You're a fool, and though we mourn for a wise man after he's dead, we mourn for a fool all the days of his life. D'you know where that comes from? Of course you don't." "I can mend, I suppose? Anyway, I've got to be myself. Nobody can be different to their own character." "Granted--you can't rise above your own character; but you can easily sink below it. That's what you have done, and your father helped you from the first." "I won't hear you say nothing against him, Uncle Humphrey. Good or bad, he was all goodness to me." "You think so, but you're wrong. Well, I'll leave him. But 'tis vain to judge you too hard when I remember your up-bringing." "All the same, I will say this for myself: when you pull me to pieces, you'll find no wickedness in me worth mentioning. Whatever I may be, I've always behaved like a gentleman and a sportsman, and none will deny it," declared Ned. "The biggest fool can be witty when it comes to excusing his own vices to his conscience," replied the old man. "Fox yourself with that rubbish, if you can, not me. To behave like a gentleman is to be a gentleman, I should think, and I understand the word very different from you. You're a selfish, worthless thing--a man that's reached near to thirty without putting away his childish toys--a man that's grown to man's estate and stature without doing so much good in the world as my blind pony--nay, nor so much good as the worm that pulls the autumn leaves into the wet ground. And you pride yourself on being a gentleman! Better larn to be a man first and a gentleman afterwards." "I've never had no occasion to work till now. Nobody ever asked me to; nobody ever wanted me to. It was natural that I shouldn't. A man can't help his character, and I can't help mine. I hate work and always shall." "That's clear, then. And I can't help my character either. I hate idleness and always shall. Never have I given a loafer a helping hand, and never will I. A man ought to be like Providence and only help those who help themselves." "But I mean to work; I need to work; I must work."