He looked round. Nobody answered. Cousin Charles, perspiring at the nose, murmured faintly, "So true--so true," but not with conviction. Some of the women wiped away a tear--they had taken four glasses of champagne, but fortunately a waiter does not quite fill up the glasses.
"Not one of you would be a bit the better off, in the long run, if I gave him a thousand pounds."
"Not to give, but to advance," said Cousin Charles.
"Not a bit the better off," John Haveril repeated. "Not a bit. We've got to work in this world--to work, and to think, and to lay low, and to watch. Those who can do nothing of all this had better sit down quiet in a retired spot. My friends, there's nothing shameful in taking a back seat. Most of the seats are in the back. Make up your mind that such is your lot, and you may be happy, though you've got no money. I've been poor, and now I'm rich. Seems to me I was just as happy when I was poor and looking out."
"Alice doesn't want to throw you over. What then? Why--this. Any one of you who came to ask for something may do it in writing. Let him send me a letter--and tell me all about it. If it's a thing that will do you no harm, I'll do it for you. But I don't expect it is, only to feel that you've got somebody who'll give you what you ask for just because you ask for it. Why, there can't be in all the world anything worse for him. Remember that you've got to work for a living, to begin with; harder if you make your fortune, and harder still if you want to keep it. That's the dispositions of Providence, and I'm not going to stand in the way of the Lord. Go home, then. Take example by me, if you can. But if you came to coax dollars out of Alice, give it up."
The audience looked at each other ruefully. They did not know what to say in reply. Nor did they know how to get off. Nobody would move first. Cousin Charles stepped forward.
"Mr. Haveril," he said, "in the name of the family, worthy or unworthy, as the case may be; greedy or disinterested, as it may be; I thank you. Whatever words may drop from you, sir, will be treasured. What you have said are golden words. We shall, I hope, write them down and engrave them on the marble tombstones of our hearts. They will be buried with us. My friends," he addressed the family, "you can go."