Grapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honor, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raconteur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful, to be on the best of terms with all men, to avenge savagely the lightest affront, to live to a hundred full of years and honor, to die young and unknown but recognized the following day as the most neglected genius of the age. Each of these ambitions had something to recommend it from one angle or another, with the possible exception of being poor - the only aim Grapnel achieved with unqualified mastery - and even being poor, as Grapnel himself asserted, gave the right to speak categorically when poverty was discussed by people like Evade Clapham.

Books Do Furnish a Room