er-shrewd, but honest--honest, by God
I was! That didn't count. It even stood in my way. For I was too good
for this and too mealy-mouthed for that; and while I stuck, considerin'
the fairness of a job, some one who didn't care a damn whether it was
fair or not, walked in over my head and took it from me. There isn't
anything I haven't tried my luck at, and with everything it's been the
same. Nothin's prospered; the money wouldn't come--or stick if it did.
And so here I am--all that's left of me. It isn't much; and by and by a
few rank weeds 'ull spring from it, and old Joey there, who's paid to
grub round the graves, old Joey 'ull curse and say: a weedy fellow
that, a rotten, weedy blackguard; and spit on his hands and hoe, till
the weeds lie bleedin' their juices--the last heirs of me ... the last
issue of my loins!"

"Pray, does it never occur to you, you fool, that FLOWERS may spring
from you?"

He had listened to Tangye's diatribe in a white heat of impatience. But
when he spoke he struck an easy tone--nor was he in any hesitation how
to reply: for that, he had played devil's advocate all too often with
himself in private. An unlovely country, yes, as Englishmen understood
beauty; and yet not without a charm of its own. An arduous life,
certainly, and one full of pitfalls for the weak or the unwary; yet he
believed it was no more impossible to win through here, and with clean
hands, than anywhere else. To generalise as his companion had done was
absurd. Preposterous, too, the notion that those of their
fellow-townsmen who had carried off the prizes owed their success to
some superiority in bodily strength ... or sharp dealing ... or
thickness of skin. With Mr. Tangye's permission he would cite himself
as an example. He was neither a very robust man, nor, he ventured to
say, one of any marked ability in the other two directions. Yet he had
managed to succeed without, in the process, sacrificing jot or tittle
of his principles; and to-day he held a position that any member of his
profession across the seas might envy him.

"Yes, but till you got there!" cried Tangye. "Hasn't every superfluous
bit of you--every thought of interest that wasn't essential to the
daily grind--been pared off?"

"If," said Mahony stiffening, "if what you mean by that is, have I
allowed my mind to grow narrow and sluggish, I can honestly answer no."

In his heart he denied the charge even more warmly; for, as he spoke,
he saw the great