"Just for the fun of the thing," he said to the cat, who had taken Binkie's
place in his establishment, "I should like to know how long this is going to
last. I can live for a year on the hundred pounds Torp cashed for me. I must
have two or three thousand at least in the Bank--twenty or thirty years more
provided for, that is to say. Then I fall back on my hundred and twenty a year,
which will be more by that time. Let's consider.
"Twenty-five--thirty-five--a man's in his prime then, they say--forty-five--a
middle-aged man just entering politics--fifty-five 'died at the comparatively
early age of fifty-five,' according to the newspapers. Bah! How these
Christians funk death! Sixty-five--we're only getting on in years. Seventy-five
is just possible, though. Great hell, cat O! fifty years more of solitary
confinement in the dark! You"ll die, and Beeton will die, and Torp will die,
and Mai--everybody else will die, but I shall be alive and kicking with nothing
to do. I'm very sorry for myself. I should like some one else to be sorry for
me. Evidently I'm not going mad before I die, but the pain's just as bad as
ever. Some day when you're vivisected, cat O! they'll tie you down on a little
table and cut you open--but don't be afraid; they'll take precious good care
that you don't die.
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