He'll be thoroughly exhausted after
all he went through on the _Spindrift_."
"Start any time you like," said the Major.
Meldon's remark interrupted him in the middle of adding up a long
column of pence. He failed to recollect where he had got to and was
obliged to begin over again.
"I can have the trap, I suppose," said Meldon, a couple of minutes
later.
Major Kent had got to the shillings column.
"Yes. But do stop talking."
"Why?" said Meldon. "Without conversation we might as well be living
in total solitude; and Bacon says, in one of his essays, that solitude
is only fit for a god or a beast. You may like being a beast, Major,
but I don't. You'll hardly set up, I suppose, to be a god."
"Hang it all, J. J.! I've forgotten how many shillings I had to carry,
and now I shall have to begin the whole tot over again."
"Hand it out to me," said Meldon, "and I'll settle the whole thing for
you in two minutes."
"Certainly not," said the Major. "I know your way of dealing with
account books. I may be slow, but I do like to be tidy."
"Very well," said Meldon, "if you choose to be unsociable, merely in
order to give yourself a lot of quite unnecessary trouble, of course
you can.
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