Very well. You know what a lazy wretch I am; I declined.
Then yesterday, when I was dawdling about the house here, it suddenly
occurred to me that after all I couldn't do better than sit down and
write to my enterprising friends in the North, and tell them that they
could have that weekly column of enlightenment, if they hadn't engaged
any one else, and if they were prepared to pay well enough for it. This
afternoon comes their answer; here it is: 'Offer still open? will four
hundred suit you?' Four hundred pounds a year will suit me very well."
"Maurice, you're taking on all that additional work on my account,"
Lionel managed to say, by way of feeble protest.
"I am taking it on to cure myself of atrocious habits of indolence. And
look at the educational process. I shall have to read all the important
new books, and attend the Private Views, and examine the working local
government; bless you! I shall become a compendium of information on
every possible modern subject. Then think of the power I shall wield;
let Quirk and his gang beware!--I shall be able to kick those
log-rollers all over the country--there will be a buffet for them here,
and a buffet for them there, until they'll go to their mothers and ask,
with tears in their eyes, why they ever were born.
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