Chapter XVII: Paddy O’Connell lays down the law

Glendalough,
August 12th, 1905.

Dear Harry,--What I would have you to do is to set about getting your living. ’Tis honest advice and the best I can give you--though it’s precious little I do in that line myself, and a poor hand I would be at the employment if my father--God rest his soul--had not done the business for me.

I am little acquainted with the art of money-making, and no wise adviser in that matter. But I see plainly enough that if you do not set about earning your living, this parson man will be banking your fortune and thanking God for it, while you will be next door to a beggar in the streets, and a mighty unsuccessful one at that.

Let me ask you what you could bring to the child if you lost your fortune. This gipsy notion is well enough when a man follows it by choice; but there is a time of life when you begin to sniff at the cooking-pot and to ask how many thorns are in your bed before you--and you will come to that before most of us, by reason of the habits you have acquired. Indeed, Harry, I am not sure that you understand at all what this loss of fortune may mean to you, nor do I believe your life will be worth living when you have lost it.

You are young, you have a fine presence, people take a liking to the looks of you, you are by no means wanting in brains. Should you get on the Stock Exchange you would find clients enough--or, for that matter, you might turn your Art knowledge to some advantage and see what you can do in that line.

Shake your wits together, my boy, and make a start, to-morrow if you can. I couldn’t do it myself--unless I were taken up by those who would learn to ride, or golf, or play a decent hand at bridge; but you can do it, Harry, for you have the brains; and if you love this little girl out of France, and if your heart is full because of her, you will lose no time in following my advice and preparing that home she will be willing enough to occupy.

Meanwhile, see, for God’s sake, that no harm overtakes her. It’s worse than wicked to hear of the company she is in. Pay for a change of employment and do not let her know that you have done it. Your purse may help to achieve this. Pull the strings of it wide open, Harry, and put her in some decent way of life, in London for preference, and where you can watch over her. I have said from the first that the blood of the Bohemian runs strong in her veins. I doubt that you will ever tie her to any house or country--but the effort is worth the making, and you know that you have my good wishes in the matter.

As for your prudence, your right to marry her or the wisdom of it, you know that I am a man who said be hanged to convention many years ago. What a sorry peep-show, what a play of shams and meanness and false pleasures is this social world we know, and into which we were born! I tell you that the hut on the mountain side--if there be good whisky therein and a decent golf course within riding distance--is all the palace I will ever require; while, as for my friend Harry, if the great high road and the café at the far end of it are not his goal, then say that I know nothing of men and less of the sex that does us all the mischief.

You will set about earning your living, Harry, and put Mimi to some decent employment unbeknown to her that you have done it. This is the wisdom and the wish of your old friend,

Paddy.