For, you know, despite his timid fears, his business will not suffer, and lifelong habits, even good ones, are not easily jeopardized.  One of the most precious jewels of advice ever offered to the plain man was that he should acquire industrious habits, and then try to lose them!  He will soon find that he cannot lose them, but the transient struggles against them will tend always to restore the sane balance of his nature.

He must deliberately arrange pleasures for himself in connection with his hobby, and as often as possible.  Once a week at least his programme should comprise some item of relaxation to which he can look forward with impatience because he has planned it, and because he has compelled seemingly more urgent matters to give way to it; and look forward to it he must, tasting it in advance, enjoying it twice over!  Thus may the appetite for pleasure, the ability really to savour it, be restored—­and incidentally kept in good trim for full use when old age arrives and he enters the lotus-land.  And with it all, when the hour of enjoyment comes, he must insist on his mind being free; expelling every preoccupation, nonchalantly accepting risks like a youth, he must abandon himself to the hour.  Let him practise lightheartedness as though it were charity.  Indeed, it is charity—­to his household, for instance.  Ask his household.

He says: 

“All this is very dangerous.  My friends won’t recognize me.  I may go too far.  I may become an idler and a spendthrift.”

Have no fear.

III — THE RISKS OF LIFE

I

By one of those coincidences for which destiny is sometimes responsible, the two very opposite plain men whom I am going to write about were most happily named Mr. Alpha and Mr. Omega; for, owing to a difference of temperament, they stood far apart, at the extreme ends of the scale.

In youth, of course, the differences between them was not fully apparent; such differences seldom are fully apparent in youth.  It first made itself felt in a dramatic way, on the evening when Mr. Alpha wanted to go to the theatre and Mr. Omega didn’t.  At this period they were both young and both married, and the two couples shared a flat together.  Also, they were both getting on very well in their careers, by which is meant that they both had spare cash to rattle in the pockets of their admirably-creased trousers.

“Come to the theatre with us to-night, Omega?” said Mr. Alpha.

“I don’t think we will,” said Mr. Omega.

“But we particularly want you to,” insisted Mr. Alpha.

“Well, it can’t be done,” said Mr. Omega.

“Got another engagement?”

“No.”

“Then why won’t you come?  You don’t mean to tell me you’re hard up?”

“Yes, I do,” said Mr. Omega.

“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself.  What have you been doing with your money lately?”