“That it may be, but still it ought to be treated a little more respectfully. Snetkov, now.⁠ ⁠… We may be of use, or we may not, but we’re the growth of a thousand years. If we’re laying out a garden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you’ve a tree that’s stood for centuries in the very spot.⁠ ⁠… Old and gnarled it may be, and yet you don’t cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to take advantage of the tree. You won’t grow him again in a year,” he said cautiously, and he immediately changed the conversation. “Well, and how is your land doing?”

“Oh, not very well. I make five percent.”

“Yes, but you don’t reckon your own work. Aren’t you worth something too? I’ll tell you my own case. Before I took to seeing after the land, I had a salary of three hundred pounds from the service. Now I do more work than I did in the service, and like you I get five percent on the land, and thank God for that. But one’s work is thrown in for nothing.”

“Then why do you do it, if it’s a clear loss?”