THE GAY COCKADE
dollars you'll look back to a day like this and envy yourself. It's happiness I'm talking about."
"Well, are you happy?" Atwood challenged.
"Why not?" asked the young man lightly. "I have enough to eat, money for tobacco, a book or two—an audience." He waved his hand to include the listening group and smiled.
It was O-liver's lightness which gave him the whip hand in an argument. They were most of them serious men; not serious in a Puritan sense of taking thought of their souls' salvation and the world's redemption, but serious in their pursuit of wealth. They had to be rich. If they weren't they couldn't marry, or if they were married they had to be rich so that their wives could keep up with the wives of the other fellows who were getting rich. They had to have cars and money to spend at big hotels and for travel, money for diamonds and furs, money for everything.
But here was O-liver Lee, who said lightly that money weighed upon him. He didn't want it. He'd be darned if he wanted it. Money brought burdens. As for himself, he'd read and ride Mary Pick.
"Anyhow," said Henry, with his hands folded across his stomach—Henry had grown fat riding in his car—"anyhow, when you get old you'll be sorry."
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