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"Don't put ories," his companion objected petulantly "The eternal blackness exists surely enough, even if my metaphor is faulty I am disposed to be philosophical Let me ramble on Here am I, an idler in my boyhood, a haredy, and since then a drifter, a drifter with a slowly growing vice, lolling through life with no definite purpose, with no definite hope or wish, except," he went on a little drowsily, "that I think I'd like to be buried somewhere near the base of those mountains, on the other side of the river, fro like a world on fire"

"You talk foolishly," Von Ragastein protested "If there has been tragedy in your life, you have tiet over it You are not yet forty years old"

"Then I turn and consider you," Doether his friend's reer Your ht as they were in your school days You carry yourself like a , the doctor tells me, and you return here, worn out, at dusk You spend everythose filthy blacks When you are not doing that, you are prospecting, supervising reports ho to make the best of your few millions of acres of fever swamps The doctor worships you but who else knows? What do you do it for, my friend?"

"Because it is my duty," was the calm reply

"Duty! But why can't you do your duty in your own country, and live a man's life, and hold the hands of white o where I aastein answered "I do not enjoy drilling natives, I do not enjoy passing the years as an outcast from the ordinary joys of human life But I follow hed 's as plain as a pikestaff You --you alere on the serious side--but you're a man of principle I'astein pronounced, "is so which is inculcated into the youth of our country and which is not inculcated into yours In England, with a littlearden for loves The htiest German noble who ever lived has his work to do It is hich ives balance to life"