"
"No more has Mrs. Flanagan the laundress," growled out Pen's Mentor;
"no more has Betty the housemaid; and I have no word of blame against
them. But a high-souled man doesn't make friends of these. A
gentleman doesn't choose these for his companions, or bitterly rues it
afterward if he do. Are you, who are setting up to be a man of the
world and philosopher, to tell me that the aim of life is to guttle
three courses and dine off silver? Do you dare to own to yourself that
your ambition in life is good claret, and that you'll dine with any,
provided you get a stalled ox to feed on? You call me a Cynic--why,
what a monstrous Cynicism it is, which you and the rest of you men of
the world admit. I'd rather live upon raw turnips and sleep in a
hollow tree, or turn backwoodsman or savage, than degrade myself to
this civilization, and own that a French cook was the thing in life
best worth living for."
"Because you like a raw beef-steak and a pipe afterward," broke out
Pen, "you give yourself airs of superiority over people, whose tastes
are more dainty, and are not ashamed of the world they live in.
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