Poor dear Barty! what would have become of all those priceless copyrights and royalties and what not if his old school-fellow hadn’t been a man of business? And where would Barty himself have been without his wife, who came from that very class?
And his admiration for an extremely good-looking person, even of his own s*x, even a scavenger or a dustman, was almost snobbish. It was like a well-bred, well-educated Englishman’s frank fondness for a noble lord.
And next to physical beauty he admired great physical strength; and I sometimes think that it is to my possession of this single gift I owe some of the warm friendship I feel sure he always bore me; for though he was a strong man, and topped me by an inch or two, I was stronger still—as a cart-horse is stronger than a racer.
For his o
