Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Girard leaned back thoughtfully in his chair.

“Well, Parrish, that isn’t half-bad,” he said. “I don’t know but what the idea appeals to me—take a run over there for the sea voyage and a glimpse of the London Stock Ex—— I mean the Tower of London. Yes, sir, you’ve put an idea in my head.” He turned to the other young man, who during this recital had been shifting uneasily in his chair. “Now, Van Buren, let’s hear how you took your ease.”

“I thought over the travel idea,” burst out Van Buren excitedly, “and I decided against it. A man of sixty doesn’t want to spend his time running back and forth between the capitals of Europe. It might fill up a year or so, but that’s all. No, sir, the main thing is to have some strong interest—and especially one that’ll be for the public good, because when a man gets along in years he wants to feel that he’s leaving the world better for having lived in it. So I worked out a plan—it’s for a historical and archeological endowment center, a thing that’d change the whole face of public education, a thing that any man would be interested in giving his time and money to. I’ve spent my whole two weeks working out the plan in detail, and let me tell you it’d be nothing but play work—just suited to the last years of an active man’s life. It’s been fascinating, Mr. Girard. I’ve learned more from doing it than I ever knew before—and I don’t think I ever had a happier two weeks in my life.”