.

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.