Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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They all sat forward eagerly in their chairs.

“Now my generation,” he went on, “have made a failure of our leisure hours. We grew up in the most hard-boiled commercial age any country ever knew, and when we retire we never know what to do with the rest of our lives. Here I am, getting out at sixty, and miserable about it. I haven’t any resources—I’ve never been much of a reader, I can’t stand golf except once a week, and I haven’t got a hobby in the world. Now someday you’re going to be sixty too. You’ll see other men taking it easy and having a good time, and you’ll want to do the same. I want to find out which one of you will be the best sort of man after his business days are over.”

He looked from one to the other of them eagerly. Parrish and Van Buren nodded at him comprehendingly. Jones after a puzzled half-moment nodded too.

“I want you each to take two weeks and spend them as you think you’ll spend your time when you’re too old to work. I want you to solve my problem for me. And whichever one I think has got the most out of his leisure—he’ll be the man to carry on my business. I’ll know it won’t swamp him like it’s swamped me.”