"
"Sounds very well," said Peer briefly. But he had to admit to himself
that the other had put into words something that had been struggling for
expression in his own mind.
"Of course for the present we two must be content with smaller things,"
Ferdinand went on. "And I don't mind admitting that laying out a bit of
road, or a bit of railway, or bridging a ditch or so, isn't work that
appeals to me tremendously. But if a man can get out into the wide
world, there are things enough to be done that give him plenty of chance
to develop what's in him--if there happens to be anything. I used
to envy the great soldiers, who went about to the ends of the earth,
conquering wild tribes and founding empires, organising and civilising
where they went. But in our day an engineer can find big jobs too, once
he gets out in the world--draining thousands of square miles of swamp,
or regulating the Nile, or linking two oceans together. That's the sort
of thing I'm going to take a hand in some day. As soon as I've finished
here, I'm off. And we'll leave it to the engineers to come, say in a
couple of hundred years or so, to start in arranging tourist routes
between the stars. Do you mind my smoking?"
"No, please do," said Peer. "But I'm sorry I haven't--"
"I have--thanks all the same." Ferdinand took out his cigar-case, and
when Peer had declined the offered cigar, lit one himself.
"Look here," he said, "won't you come out and have dinner with me
somewhere?"
Peer started at his visitor.
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