Newman had sat with Western humorists in knots, round
cast-iron stoves, and seen "tall" stories grow taller without toppling
over, and his own imagination had learned the trick of piling up
consistent wonders. Bellegarde's regular attitude at last became that
of laughing self-defense; to maintain his reputation as an all-knowing
Frenchman, he doubted of everything, wholesale. The result of this was
that Newman found it impossible to convince him of certain time-honored
verities.
"But the details don't matter," said M. de Bellegarde. "You have
evidently had some surprising adventures; you have seen some strange
sides of life, you have revolved to and fro over a whole continent as
I walked up and down the Boulevard. You are a man of the world with a
vengeance! You have spent some deadly dull hours, and you have done some
extremely disagreeable things: you have shoveled sand, as a boy, for
supper, and you have eaten roast dog in a gold-diggers' camp. You have
stood casting up figures for ten hours at a time, and you have sat
through Methodist sermons for the sake of looking at a pretty girl in
another pew. All that is rather stiff, as we say. But at any rate you
have done something and you are something; you have used your will
and you have made your fortune. You have not stupified yourself
with debauchery and you have not mortgaged your fortune to social
conveniences.
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