CONCERNING HORSE PLAY
seem to say, "Well, for Heaven's sake! why didn't I realize this before!"
Just between you and me there is a great deal more Simon-pure overweening conceit among men of my age, or, say, when they're a little older and have begun to take on fat. And to my mind this calm, impenetrable self-satisfaction, this fatty degeneration of the ego, is much more absurd than the yawping, barking confidence of the pup-like age, which at worst is merely amusing.
The fact is, I sometimes wonder how you fellows can keep on listening with so much respectful patience when these old boys come down here and blow off the same old hot-air bombast. But how did we stand it? I can see them now standing before us, smiling kindly, a frock coat buttoned tight across the stomach to make it look like a chest, and seeming to say, "Am I not (as my wife tells me) a fine figure of a man!" as they let fly at us about youth and its futile dreams of conquering the world; "I know how it is, I was once a young man myself (astonishing thought!) I, too, have trod
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