He would shake his head and smile over his tobacco-pipe with a deal of meaning.

'You come too late,' he would answer.

'I am a dead man now: I have lived and died already.

Fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into my mouth; and now you do not even tempt me.

But that is the object of long living, that man should cease to care about life.' And again: 'There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.' Or once more: 'When I was a boy, I was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it was myself or the world that was curious and worth looking into.