"
"If you knew how provoking he is!"
"I have a great fellow-feeling for him, having grown up the same sort
of helpless being as he has been. I should be much worse in his
place."
"Never!" cried Babie. "You would never hang about the house,
worrying mother about eating and fiddle-faddles, instead of doing any
one useful thing!"
"But if one can't?"
"I don't believe in can't."
"Happy person!"
"Oh, Duke, you know I never meant health; you know I did not," and
then a pang shot across her as she remembered her past contempt of
him whom she now reverenced.
"There are other incapacities," he said.
"But," said Babie, half-pleading, half-meditating, "Allen is not
stupid. He used to be considered just as clever as Bobus; and he is
so now to talk to. Can there be any reason but laziness, and want of
application, that makes him never succeed in anything, except in
answering riddles and acrostics in the papers? He generally just
begins things, and makes mother or Armie finish them for him. He
really did set to work and finish up an article on Count Ugolino
since we came home from Fordham, and he has tried all the periodicals
round, and they won't have it, not even the editors that know
mother!"
"Poor fellow! And you have no pity!"
"Don't you think it is his own fault?"
"It is quite possible that he would have done much better if he had
always had to work for his livelihood.
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