"Do you take me for the biggest dunce you've known?" Morgan asked.
"Haven't I been conscious of what we've been through together?"

"What we've been through?"

"Our privations--our dark days."

"Oh our days have been bright enough."

Morgan went on in silence for a moment. Then he said: "My dear chap,
you're a hero!"

"Well, you're another!" Pemberton retorted.

"No I'm not, but I ain't a baby. I won't stand it any longer. You must
get some occupation that pays. I'm ashamed, I'm ashamed!" quavered the
boy with a ring of passion, like some high silver note from a small
cathedral cloister, that deeply touched his friend.

"We ought to go off and live somewhere together," the young man said.

"I'll go like a shot if you'll take me."

"I'd get some work that would keep us both afloat," Pemberton continued.

"So would I. Why shouldn't I work? I ain't such a beastly little muff
as that comes to."

"The difficulty is that your parents wouldn't hear of it. They'd never
part with you; they worship the ground you tread on. Don't you see the