, and with ardour to run a race in it. It's the best
of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings, isn't it?«
    »Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,« said Clennam.
    »And imposition,« added Gowan, laughing; »we won't leave out the imposition.
I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being a disappointed man may
show itself. I may not be able to face it out gravely enough. Between you and
me, I think there is some danger of my being just enough soured not to be able
to do that.«
    »To do what?« asked Clennam.
    »To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps
himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence as to
labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and giving up many
solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for it, and living in it, and
all the rest of it - in short, to pass the bottle of smoke, according to rule.«
    »But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is; and
to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect it
deserves; is it not?« Arthur reasoned. »And your vocation, Gowan, may really
demand this suit and service. I confess I should have thought that all Art did.«
    »What a good fellow you are, Clennam!« exclaimed the other, stopping to look
at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. »What a capital fellow! You have
never been disappointed. That's easy to see.«
    It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly resolved
to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, laid his hand upon his
shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on:
    »Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give any
money (if I had any) to live in such a rose-coloured mist. But what I do in my
trade, I do to sell. What all we fellows do, we do to sell. If we didn't want to
sell it for the most we can get for it, we shouldn't do it. Being work, it has
to be done; but it's easily enough done. All the
