"Paris is a very good place for idle people," he said, "or it is a very
good place if your family has been settled here for a long time, and you
have made acquaintances and got your relations round you; or if you have
got a good big house like this, and a wife and children and mother and
sister, and everything comfortable. I don't like that way of living all
in rooms next door to each other. But I am not an idler. I try to be,
but I can't manage it; it goes against the grain. My business habits are
too deep-seated. Then, I haven't any house to call my own, or anything
in the way of a family. My sisters are five thousand miles away, my
mother died when I was a youngster, and I haven't any wife; I wish I
had! So, you see, I don't exactly know what to do with myself. I am not
fond of books, as you are, sir, and I get tired of dining out and going
to the opera. I miss my business activity. You see, I began to earn my
living when I was almost a baby, and until a few months ago I have never
had my hand off the plow. Elegant leisure comes hard."
This speech was followed by a profound silence of some moments, on the
part of Newman's entertainers. Valentin stood looking at him fixedly,
with his hands in his pockets, and then he slowly, with a half-sidling
motion, went out of the door.
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