"We're young--yes. But one must inquire. The grocer's a grocer because,
I suppose, he sees he comes in there. Feels that on the whole it amounts
to a call.... But the bother is I don't see where I come in at all. Do
you?"

"Where you come in?"

"No, where you come in."

"Not exactly, yet," I said. "I want to do some good in the
world--something--something effectual, before I die. I have a sort of
idea my scientific work--I don't know."

"Yes," he mused. "And I've got a sort of idea my sculpture,--but now it
is to come in and WHY,--I've no idea at all." He hugged his knees for a
space. "That's what puzzles me, Ponderevo, no end."

He became animated. "If you will look in that cupboard," he said,
"you will find an old respectable looking roll on a plate and a knife
somewhere and a gallipot containing butter. You give them me and I'll
make my breakfast, and then if you don't mind watching me paddle about
at my simple toilet I'll get up. Then we'll go for a walk and talk about
this affair of life further. And about Art and Literature and anything
else that crops up on the way.... Yes, that's the gallipot. Cockroach
got in it? Chuck him out--damned interloper...."

So in the first five minutes of our talk, as I seem to remember it
now, old Ewart struck the note that ran through all that morning's
intercourse....