human
I don't know that I've any better reason, Davenant laughed, snipping off the end of his cigar,
gpt
Good! Guion laughed, rather loudly. Then, stopping abruptly, he continued,
human
I fancy you know your way pretty well in any direction you want to go, don't you?
gpt
I can find it--if I know where I'm going. I came back to Boston chiefly because that was just what I didn't know.
human
He means, Rodney Temple explained,
gpt
I'd got out of something more than my beat; I'd got out of my element. I found that the life of elegant leisure on which I'd embarked wasn't what I'd been cut out for.
human
That's interesting--very, Guion said.
gpt
How did you make the discovery?
human
By being bored to death.
gpt
Bored?--with all your money?
human
The money isn't much; but, even if it were, it couldn't go on buying me a good time.
gpt
That, of course, depends on what your idea of a good time may be; doesn't it, Rodney?
human
It depends somewhat, Rodney replied,
gpt
I'm afraid my conception of a good time, Davenant smiled,
human
A bee, Guion observed,
gpt
Neither am I, Davenant declared, with a big laugh.
human
I spring from the primitive stratum of people born to work, who expect to work, and who, when they don't work, have no particular object in living on.
gpt
And so you've come back to Boston to work?
human
To work--or something.
gpt
You leave yourself, I see, the latitude of--something.
human
Only because it's better than nothing. It's been nothing for so long now that I'm willing to make it anything.
gpt
Make what--anything?
human
My excuse for remaining on earth. If I'm to go on doing that, I've got to have something more to justify it than the mere ability to pay my hotel bill.
gpt
You're luckier than you know to be able to do that much, Guion said, with one of his abrupt, nervous changes of position.
human
But you've been uncommonly lucky, anyhow, haven't you? Made some money out of that mine business, didn't you? Or was it in sugar?
gpt
A little, he admitted.
human
But, to any one like you, sir, it would seem a trifle.
gpt
To any one like me! Listen. He leaned forward, with feverish eyes, and spoke slowly, tapping on the table-cloth as he did so.
human
For half a million dollars I'd sell my soul.
gpt
That's a good deal for a soul, Henry. It's a large amount of the sure and tangible for a very uncertain quantity of the impalpable and problematical.