'This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall,' said Somerset: 'Three

futiles.'

'A character of this crowded age,' returned the salesman.

'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit

one fact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile,

and that we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I

have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography,

smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial

astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's

end, as impotent as any baby. I have a prodigious contempt for my

maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle to deny it, I should

simply resolve into my elements like an unstable mixture. I begin

to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the

bottom--were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man of the

world is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an

extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at

home; he has seen life in all its phases; and it is impossible but

that this great habit of existence should bear fruit. I count

myself a man of the world, accomplished, CAP-A-PIE. So do you,

Challoner. And you, Mr. Desborough?'

'Oh yes,' returned the young man.

'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world,

without a trade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of

the universe (for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in

the midst of the chief mass of people, and within ear-shot of the

most continuous chink of money on the surface of the globe. Sir,

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