But they make bad company for a young and high-souled man, and you may see your young enthusiast, after a year of town-life, converted into a cynic who tries to make game of everything.  He talks lightly of women, because that is considered as showing a spirit of superiority; he is humorous regarding the state of his head on the morning after a late supper; he can give you slangy little details about any one and every one whom you may meet at a theatre or any other public place; he is somewhat proud when some bellowing, foul-mouthed bookmaker smiles suavely and inquires, “Doing anything to-day, sir?” Mark you, he is still a charming young fellow; but the bloom has gone from his character.  He has been in bad company.

Let it be remembered that bad company may be pleasant at first; and I can easily give the reason for that, although the process of thinking out the problem is a little complicated.  The natural tendency of our lower nature is toward idleness; our higher nature drives us to work.  But no man ever attained the habit of work without an effort.  If once that effort is slackened, then the lower nature gains sway by degrees and idleness creeps in.  Idleness is the beginning of almost every form of ill, and the idlest man dashes down the steep to ruin either of body or soul, perhaps of both.  Now the best of us—­until our habits are formed—­find something seductive in the notion of idleness; and it is most marvellous to observe how strongly we are apt to be drawn by a fascinating idle man.  By-the-way, no one would accuse the resident Cambridge professors of being slothful, yet one brilliant idle man of genius said, “When I go to Cambridge, I affect them all with a murrain of idleness.  I should paralyze the work of the place if I were resident.”  To return—­it appears that the best of men, especially of youthful men, feel the subtle charm of an invitation to laziness.  The man who says, “It’s a sin to be indoors to-day; let us row up to the backwater and try a smoke among the willows;” or the one who says, “Never mind mathematics to-night; come and have a talk with me,” is much more pleasing than the stern moralist.  Well, it happens that the most dangerous species of bad company is the species Idler.  Look round over the ranks of the hurtful creatures who spoil the State, corrupt and sap the better nature of young men, and disgrace the name of our race.  What are they all but idlers pure and simple?  Idleness, idleness, the tap-root of misery, sin, villainy!  Note the gambler at Monte Carlo, watching with tense but impassive face as the red and the black take the advantage by turns—­he is an idler.  The roaring bookmaker who contaminates the air with his cries, and who grows wealthy on the spoil of fools—­he is an idler.  The silly beings who crowd into the betting-shops and lounge till morning in the hot air; the stout florid person who passes from bar to bar in a commercial town; the greasy scoundrel who congregates with his mates