A few
days later the remaining six thousand were housed in a cupboard with an
iron door in the wall of his office at the Manor Cartier.
"There, that will keep me in heart and promise," said Jean Jacques as he
turned the key in the lock.
CHAPTER XVIII
JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER
The day after Jean Jacques had got a new lease of life and become his own
banker, he treated himself to one of those interludes of pleasure from
which he had emerged in the past like a hermit from his cave. He sat on
the hill above his lime-kilns, reading the little hand-book of philosophy
which had played so big a part in his life. Whatever else had disturbed
his mind and diverted him from his course, nothing had weaned him from
this obsession. He still interlarded all his conversation with
quotations from brilliant poseurs like Chateaubriand and Rochefoucauld,
and from missionaries of thought like Hume and Hegel.
His real joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be called a
seance of meditation from the world's business. Some men make
celebration in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it in
flooding his mind with streams of human thought which often tried to run
uphill, which were frequently choked with weeds, but still were like the
pool of Siloam to his vain mind.
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