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"You bet I didn't. All the time I was working I kept thinking of
the bathing here and the vineyards and the walks over the hills and
the moon and the sea, and the Piazza in the evening when everyone
walks about for a bit of a chat after the day's work is over. There was
only one thing that bothered me: I wasn't sure if I was justified in not
working like everybody else did. Then I read a sort of history book,
by a man called Marion Crawford it was, and there was a story about
Sybaris and Crotona. There were two cities; and in Sybaris they just
enjoyed life and had a good time, and in Crotona they were hardy and
industrious and all that. And one day the men of Crotona came over
and wiped Sybaris out, and then after a while a lot of other fellows
came over from somewhere else and wiped Crotona out. Nothing
remains of Sybaris, not a stone, and all that's left of Crotona is just
one column. That settled the matter for me."
"Oh? "
"It came to the same in the end, didn't it? And when you look
back now, who were the mugs? " I did not reply and he went on. "The
money was rather a bother. The bank didn't pension one off till after
thirty years' service, but if you retired before that they gave you a
gratuity. With that and what I'd got for the sale of my house and the
little I'd managed to save, I just hadn't enough to buy an annuity to
last the rest of my life. It would have been silly to sacrifice everything
so as to lead a pleasant life and not have a sufficient income to make
it pleasant. I wanted to have a little place of my own, a servant to look
after me, enough to buy tobacco, decent food, books now and then,
and something over for emergencies. I knew pretty well how much I
needed. I found I had just enough to buy an annuity for twenty-five
years."
"You were thirty-five at the time?"
"Yes. It would carry me on till I was sixty. After all, no one can
be certain of living longer than that, a lot of men die in their fifties,
and by the time a man's sixty he's had the best of life."
"On the other hand no one can be sure of dying at sixty," I said.
"Well, I don't know. It depends on himself, doesn't it? "
"In your place I should have stayed on at the bank till I was
entitled to my pension."
"I should have been forty-seven then. I shouldn't have been too
old to enjoy my life here, I'm older than that now and I enjoy it as
much as I ever did, but I should have been too old to experience the