"What care I," said he to me one day, "about being what they call a
gentleman?" And his manner was almost fierce.
"What has being a gentleman ever done for me except make me less able to
prey and more easy to be preyed upon? It has changed the manner of my
being swindled, that is all. But for your kindness to me I should be
penniless. Thank heaven I have placed my children where I have."
I begged him to keep quiet a little longer and not talk about taking a
shop.
"Will being a gentleman," he said, "bring me money at the last, and will
anything bring me as much peace at the last as money will? They say that
those who have riches enter hardly into the kingdom of Heaven. By Jove,
they do; they are like Struldbrugs; they live and live and live and are
happy for many a long year after they would have entered into the kingdom
of Heaven if they had been poor. I want to live long and to raise my
children, if I see they would be happier for the raising; that is what I
want, and it is not what I am doing now that will help me. Being a
gentleman is a luxury which I cannot afford, therefore I do not want it.
Let me go back to my shop again, and do things for people which they want
done and will pay me for doing for them.
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