You need never work--"
"Stop!" said Queed, and the old man stopped in his tracks. "Can't I make
you understand?" he went on, fighting hard for calmness. "Isn't it clear
to you that _nothing_ could induce me to touch another penny of this
money?"
"Ah!" said Surface, in his softest voice. "Ah! And might I inquire the
reason for this heroic self-restraint?"
"You choose your words badly. It is no restraint to honest men to
decline to take other people's money."
"Ah, I see. I see. I see," said Surface, nodding his shining hairless
head up and down.
"Good-by."
"No, no," said the old man, in an odd thick voice. "Not quite yet, if
you please. There is still something that I want to say to you."
He came slowly around the tiny table, and Queed watched his coming with
bursts of fierce repugnance which set his hard-won muscles to twitching.
An elemental satisfaction there might be in throwing the old man through
the window. Yet, in a truer sense, he felt that the necessity of
manhandling him would be the final touch in this degrading interview.
"You value your society too high, my dear boy," said Surface with a face
of chalk.
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