even pretending that there is any virtue in my offer. If,” he laughed, “I had still the use of my legs I wouldn’t do it, that’s obvious. I should be too keen on my own career to trouble much about helping another man on. I should, if I had completely recovered, have probably given you a piece of jewellery in acknowledgment of your kindness, and always been your friend and glad to see you. I am selfish; all successful men are, although some contrive to disguise it from a stupid public by advertising the contrary; it has made me; I don’t say I could not have got on without practising selfishness, but it would have taken me much longer, and time, you know, is of the essence of our contract with Fate in these days of hustle, rush and scramble. And it is just that very instinct of self that now draws me to you; for selfishness by no means implies ingratitude. Within limits, they who make self their god are keenly grateful to[19] those who serve in his temple. It is just as well to be honest in a matter of this kind, and for neither of us to enter upon a contract such as I am proposing with false impressions. For it must be a contract, my dear Geoffrey; binding by the very seal of our individual interests, and to be honourably kept in its spirit as well as on its material side. It will be necessary for us to believe in one another, to trust one another. Those are general stipulations: the only specific conditions I shall make are, absolute, inviolable secrecy, which you would hardly break, and, what you may find less easy to comply with, implicit obedience to my instructions. I am not surprised to see you look serious at that, but don’t misunderstand me. I am not going to put a knife in your hand and send you forth to murder one of my pet aversions. I have no intention of asking you to do anything, to use any weapon which an ordinary man of the world need in honour, our code of to-day, shrink from. But if I want a man hit hard you must hit him hard; you will be my soldier, and when I send you out to fight I don’t expect you to patch up a truce and arbitrate. I have always been a fighting man, and as my representative, my proxy, you would have to carry my banner, which bears the motto, ‘No compromise.’ The rewards would be great. If, as I hardly suppose, my affairs should turn out so that it became necessary for me to levy toll of your earnings, I would take care you were no loser by that. I will get you into the House, and what is more, I will make you master of the art of making your mark there when you are in. That is the real crux. That is where nine out of ten, even clever, men fail. There need be no limit to your ambition. Every day’s programme shall[20] be sketched for you, every wrong turning marked with a red cross, every pitfall fenced, the right road
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