ugly and mean, and I hate having done it. And the continuity of the
species--Lord!... And why does Nature make a man so infernally ready for
drinks? There's no sense in that anyhow." He sat up in bed, to put this
question with the greater earnestness. "And why has she given me a most
violent desire towards sculpture and an equally violent desire to leave
off work directly I begin it, eh?... Let's have some more coffee. I put
it to you, these things puzzle me, Ponderevo. They dishearten me. They
keep me in bed."

He had an air of having saved up these difficulties for me for some
time. He sat with his chin almost touching his knees, sucking at his
pipe.

"That's what I mean," he went on, "when I say life is getting on to me
as extraordinarily queer, I don't see my game, nor why I was invited.
And I don't make anything of the world outside either. What do you make
of it?"

"London," I began. "It's--so enormous!"

"Isn't it! And it's all up to nothing. You find chaps keeping grocers'
shops--why the DEVIL, Ponderevo, do they keep grocers' shops? They
all do it very carefully, very steadily, very meanly. You find people
running about and doing the most remarkable things being policemen, for
example, and burglars. They go about these businesses quite gravely and
earnestly. I somehow--can't go about mine. Is there any sense in it at
all--anywhere?"

"There must be sense in it," I said. "We're young."