Yes, I know Starrett drags you about with him and you
daren't offend him because he's your chief, but you're clever and you
can get another job. In ten years, as you're going now, you'll be an
alcoholic ash-heap of jaded passions. What's more, you have infernal
luck at cards and you haven't money enough to keep on losing so
heavily. Half of the poker sermons Starrett's been growling about were
preached for you."
Now there were mad, irreverent moments when Carl Granberry delivered
his poker sermons with the eloquent mannerisms of the pulpit, save, as
Payson held, they were infinitely more logical and eloquent, but
to-night, husking his logic of these externals, he fell flatly to
preaching an unadorned philosophy of continence acutely at variance
with his own habits.
Wherry stared wonderingly at the tall, lithe figure by the fire.
"Carl," he said at last, "tell me, are you honestly in earnest when you
rag the fellows so about work and decency and all that sort of thing?"
Carl yawned and lighted a cigar.
"I believe," said he, "in the eternal efficacy of good. I believe in
the telepathic potency of moral force. I believe in physical
conservation for the eugenic good of the race and mental dominance over
matter. But I'm infernally lazy myself, and it's easy to preach.
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