His friend looked at him,--and was about to say, “At other people’s expense!” but checked the remark in time.
“You don’t--er--you don’t--er seem to care about any one?” he hinted, hesitatingly.
The Philosopher elevated his grizzled eyebrows ironically.
“Care?” he echoed. “Care about any one?... Surely a cryptic utterance!”
“I mean”--pursued the other man--“you’ve no woman--”
“Woman!” The Philosopher laughed. “My good fellow, what do you take me for! Woman? Women? As well ask me if I keep midges for amusement! No, no! I’ve ‘no woman’ as you rather clumsily put it--I _might_ marry--it is possible--”
“Money--and good looks together might persuade me,” resumed the Philosopher judiciously. “But I should endeavor to make myself very sure that my own special manners and customs would not be interfered with by the procedure. The first aim of life--considering its farcical ineptitude--should be personal comfort,--anything that interfered with that should be rigorously avoided.”
The friend went his way, lost in amazement at what he styled “the old chap’s d--d selfishness”--but the Philosopher smoked a pipe enjoyingly, convinced that his theories were beyond all refutation or argument, and that so far from being selfish he was one of the most virtuous and magnanimous of men. Encased in a hide of hardened egoism, tougher and more leathery than that of rhinoceros or elephant, he was unable to perceive any faults of character in himself though he was keen to mark and to satirize the smallest flaw in the conduct of other people.
While he lingered on in the country, “sponging” on his host, he took it into his head to assume a benevolence and kindness towards his host’s daughter, which, in her rather solitary way of life, greatly appealed to her over-sensitive nature. He could be an attractive personality when he chose,--he had an agreeable voice, a pleasant smile, and a coaxing manner,--and when all three were “in play” together, it was difficult not to be deceived into thinking him an exceptionally charming man. There was no doubt of his intellectuality; he was eminent in knowledge of a varied kind,--he had read widely and he was a good _raconteur_. Yet one got to the end of his stories in time, and he was apt to repeat them too often. He had known and still knew many “famous” people,--both in literary and political circles, and he could tell many amusing incidents in connection with them,--yet even of these incidents one got tired after hearing them for the twentieth time. What took the savour out of them was that he always rounded them up by some unkind reflection as to the stupidity of that person, the dulness of t’other, for in his whole list of acquaintance there certainly was not one who came off unscathed by his sarcasm or his ridicule.