1870. Yes, I have warmed both hands at the fire of life, and even
burnt my fingers now and then, but not severely.

One love disappointment. The sting of it lasted a couple of years,
the compensation more than thirty! I loved her all the better,
perhaps, that I did not marry her. I'm afraid it is not in me to
love a very good wife of my own as much as I really ought!

And I love her children as well as if they'd been mine, and her
grandchildren even better. They are irresistible, these
grandchildren of Barty's and Leah's--mine wouldn't have been a patch
on them; besides, I get all the fun and none of the bother and
anxiety. Evidently it was my true vocation to remain single--and be
a tame cat in a large, warm house, where there are lots of nice
children.

O happy Bob Maurice! O happy sexagenarian!

"O me fortunatum, mea si bona norim!" (What would Pere Brossard say
at this? he would give me a twisted pinch on the arm--and serve me
right!)

I'm very glad I've been successful, though it's not a very high
achievement to make a very large fortune by buying and selling that
which put into a man's mouth is said to steal away his brains!

But it does better things than this. It reconciles and solves and
resolves mental discords, like music. It makes music for people who
have no ear--and there are so many of these in the world that I'm a
millionaire, and Franz Schubert died a pauper. So I prefer to drink
beer--as _he_ did; and I never miss a Monday Pop if I can help it.

_I_ have done better things, too. I have helped to govern my country
and make its laws; but it all came out of wine to begin with--all
from learning how to buy and sell. We're a nation of shopkeepers,
although the French keep better shops than ours, and more of them.

I'm glad I'm successful because of Barty, although success, which
brings the world to our feet, does not always endear us to the
friend of our bosom. If I had been a failure Barty would have stuck
to me like a brick, I feel sure, instead of my sticking to him like
a leech! And the sight of his success might have soured me--that
eternal chorus of praise, that perpetual feast of pudding in which I
should have had no part but to take my share as a mere guest, and
listen and look on and applaud, and wish I'd never been born!

As it is, I listened and looked on and clapped my hands with as much
pride and pleasure as if Barty had been my son--and my share of the
pudding never stuck in my thro