"
[Illustration: "He pumped me dry."]
Tim stopped suddenly, and winked at Captain. "I told him I wanted to
go away and see something as you had done, for I was weary of listening
to your accounts of things you'd seen. It's awful to have to listen to
another's travels. It must be fine to tell about your own."
"Well, is it my talking that's driving you away, or is it Weston's
alluring offers?"
"Alluring?" Tim laughed. "I'll say for Weston, he is frank. He told
me that to his mind business was worse than death. He was born to it.
His father left it to him and he has to keep it going to live; but he
lets his partner look after it mostly, and he is always worrying lest
his partner should die and leave him with the whole thing on his hands.
He told me I'd have to drudge in a dark office over books for ten hours
a day, and that it would be years before I began to see any rewards.
By that time I would probably decide that the old-fashioned scheme of
having kings born to order was more sensible than making men wear their
lives out trying to become rulers.
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