Three
I don’t know much about writing things down—not, I mean, in the way aproper writer would do. The bit about that picture I saw, for instance. Itdoesn’t really have anything to do with anything. I mean, nothing came ofit, it didn’t lead to anything and yet I feel somehow that it is important,that it has a place somewhere. It was one of the things that happened tome that meant something. Just like Gipsy’s Acre meant something to me.
Like Santonix meant something to me.
I haven’t really said much about him. He was an architect. Of courseyou’ll have gathered that. Architects are another thing I’d never had muchto do with, though I knew a few things about the building trade. I cameacross Santonix in the course of my wanderings. It was when I was work-ing as a chauffeur¹, driving the rich around places. Once or twice I droveabroad, twice to Germany—I knew a bit of German—and once or twice toFrance—I had a smattering of French too—and once to Portugal. Theywere usually elderly people, who had money and bad health in aboutequal quantities.
When you drive people like that around, you begin to think that moneyisn’t so hot after all. What with incipient² heart attacks, lots of bottles oflittle pills you have to take all the time, and losing your temper over thefood or the service in hotels. Most of the rich people I’ve known have beenfairly miserable³. They’ve got their worries, too. Taxation⁴ and investments.
You hear them talking together or to friends. Worry! That’s what’s killinghalf of them. And their sex life’s not so hot either. They’ve either got long-legged blonde sexy wives who are playing them up with boyfriends some-where, or they’re married to the complaining kind of woman, hideous⁶ ashell, who keeps telling them where they get off. No. I’d rather be myself.
Michael Rogers, seeing the world, and getting off with good-looking girlswhen he feels like it!
Everything a bit hand-to-mouth, of course, but I put up with that. Lifewas good fun, and I’d been content to go on with life being fun. But I sup-pose I would have in any case. That attitude goes with youth. When youthbegins to pass fun isn’t fun any longer.

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