"No--of course, I don't want to preach. I'm the last man to tell any one what they should do, seeing the mess that I've made of things myself. But look here, Bethel, I like you--I count myself a friend, and what are friends for if they're not to speak their minds?" "Oh! That's all right enough. Go on--I'll listen." He resigned himself with a humorous submission as though he were indulging the opinions of a child. "Well, it isn't right, you know--it isn't really. I don't want to tell you that you're a fool or a rotter, because you aren't, but that's just what makes it so disappointing for any one who cares about you. You're letting all your finer self go. You're becoming, what they say you are, a waster. Of course, finding yourself's all right--every man ought to do that. But you have no right to throw off all claims as completely as you have done. Life isn't like that. We've all got our Land of Promise, and, just in order that it may remain, we are never allowed to reach it. Whilst you are lying on your back on the moor, your wife and daughter are killing themselves in order to keep the home together--I say that it is not fair." "Oh, come, Trojan," Bethel protested, "is that quite fair on your side? Things are all right, you know. They like it better, they do really. Why, if I were to stay at home and try to work they'd think I was going to be ill. Besides, I couldn't--not at an office or anything like that. It isn't my fault, really--but it would kill me now if I couldn't get away when I want to--not having liberty would be worse than death." "Ah, that's yourself," said Harry. "That's selfish. Why don't you think of them? You can't let things go on as they are, man. You must get something to do." "I'm damned if I will." Bethel stopped short and stretched his arms wide over the moor. "It isn't as if it would do them any good, and it would kill me. Why, one is deaf and blind and dumb as soon as one has work to do. I'm a child, you know. I've never grown up, and of course I hadn't any right to marry. I don't know now why I did. And all you people--you grown-ups--with your businesses and difficult pleasures and noisy feasts--of course you can't understand what these things mean. Only a few of you who sit with folded hands and listen can know what it is. I saw a picture once--some people feasting in a forest, and suddenly a little faun jumped from a tree on to their table and waited for them to play with him. But some were eating and some drinking and some talking scandal, and they did not see him. Only a little boy and an old man--they were doing nothing--just dreaming--and they saw him. Oh! I tell you, the dreamer has his philosophy and creed like the rest of you!" "That's all very well," cried Harry. "But it's a case of bread and butter. You will be bankrupt if you go on as you are!"