THE PRODIGAL SON.
BY DUTTON COOK, AUTHOR OF “PAUL FOSTER’S DAUGHTER,” &c.
“A lytel misgoyng in the gynning causeth mykel errour in the end.”—Chaucer’s “Testament of Love.”
CHAPTER XIII. NIGHT.
Quite unconscious of the scene of which they had been the occasion, the two friends walked on.
When men’s conversation touches upon the subjects in which they are most interested, such as their career in life, their professional pursuits, their daily avocations, the world, I believe, which has rather a contempt for things simply natural and of course, designates the proceeding “talking shop,” and recommends us to avoid such discussion, by all means. For the world while it does not approve of idleness is still not indisposed oftentimes to regard us all as gentlemen at large, whose only ostensible objects in life are to visit our clubs daily, dress decently, pick our teeth and read the papers punctually, and then, after a certain number of years, to die and get buried as quietly and respectably as possible, in of course, a Protestant graveyard. We have no right, therefore, by our converse to reveal continually the circumstance or obtrude the fact that in truth we work for our bread, and are considerably interested in getting it. That is assumed at starting—we are English—we are industrious somehow; the particulars are not required; the fact once admitted is not to be further alluded to, or we shall be guilty of the impropriety of “talking shop.” Certainly society’s sentiments in this respect are a little set at defiance. For wherever you perceive a knot of men engaged in particularly pleasant discourse, you may be sure they are “talking shop;” and enjoying their evasion and contravention of duty just as people take pleasure in the flavour of contraband cigars or the scent of smuggled eau de Cologne; and indeed, waiving its impropriety socially considered, “talking shop” is really an amusing if not an edifying occupation.
Wilford and Martin talked shop greatly as they marched Temple-wards. They spoke copiously of this paper of Wilford’s, of that review of Martin’s, of Such-a-one’s last, of So-and-so’s next book, of plans for the future, of suggestions for work, of their positions—the one as a novelist, the other as a critic. Undoubtedly the conver-