9
I Am Invited To Go Further
I had a sort of unformulated idea, until lately, that the man of fifty, provided he were fairly sane and not actually poverty-stricken, had many advantages.
Blood, speaking unscientifically, is supposed to cool considerably earlier than at fifty. The wisdom of experience is assumed to have accumulated.
It must be a matter of temperament and habit. At any rate, I have discovered that this comfortable mood of laissez aller, and refusal to marvel or admire, is not yet for me.
I left the Plain Speakers only to go home and think about them—and more particularly of the girl O’Hagan. Maxwell and Perceval had given me the idea that I was to be a Plain Speaker in order that I might learn more about a mummy; but it looked as though I had been taken in order to meet
