212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 179
as well have told a fellow, at Pompeii, to select a profession the
day before the eruption."
" If you know that Vesuvius is going to burst over Pompeii,"
I said, somewhat alarmed, "why not go to Naples, or farther if
you will?"
"Were there not men in the sentry-boxes at the city gates,"
asked Philip, " who might have run, and yet remained to be burned
there? Suppose, after all, the doom isn't hanging over us,—and
the fear of it is only a nervous terror of mine ? Suppose it comes,
and I survive it ? The risk of the game gives a zest to it, old boy.
Besides, there is Honour : and Someone Else is in the case, from
whom a man could not part in an hour of danger." And here he
blushed a fine red, heaved a great sigh, and emptied a bumper
of claret.