I have the best will in the world about it, but my genius doesn't
lie in that direction. As a loafer I shall never be original, as I take
it that you are."
"Yes," said Tristram, "I suppose I am original; like all those immoral
pictures in the Louvre."
"Besides," Newman continued, "I don't want to work at pleasure, any
more than I played at work. I want to take it easily. I feel deliciously
lazy, and I should like to spend six months as I am now, sitting under
a tree and listening to a band. There's only one thing; I want to hear
some good music."
"Music and pictures! Lord, what refined tastes! You are what my wife
calls intellectual. I ain't, a bit. But we can find something better for
you to do than to sit under a tree. To begin with, you must come to the
club."
"What club?"
"The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; all the best of
them, at least. Of course you play poker?"
"Oh, I say," cried Newman, with energy, "you are not going to lock me up
in a club and stick me down at a card-table! I haven't come all this way
for that."
"What the deuce HAVE you come for! You were glad enough to play poker in
St. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out."
"I have come to see Europe, to get the best out of it I can. I want to
see all the great things, and do what the clever people do.
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