Ng!' The old fellow squinted at his mast and tightened a cord. Then he continued. 'If you are interested, come around any Sunday morning until the pond is frozen. And if you want to try your hand
at a boat this winter, just ask any of us boys and we will help you. Your first boat or two will be sad--_Ju-das!_ But you will learn.'" Flint was interrupted by Quill. "Isn't that rather a silly occupation for grown men?" "It's not an occupation," said Flint. "It's an avocation, and it isn't silly. Any one of us would enjoy it, if he weren't so self-conscious. And it's more picturesque than golf and takes more skill. And what courtesy!
These men form what is really a club--a club in its primitive and true sense. And I was invited to be one of them." Flannel Shirt broke in. "By George, that _was_ courtesy. If you had happened on a polo player at his club--a man not known to you--he wouldn't have invited you to come around and bring your pony for instruction." "It's not an exact comparison, is it, Old Flannel Shirt?" "No, maybe not." There was a pause. It was Flint who resumed. "I rather like to think of that interior decorator littering up his dining-room every night--clamps and glue-pots on the sideboard--hardly room for the sugar-bowl--lumber underneath--and then bringing out a new boat in the spring." Wurm looked up from the couch. "Stevenson," he said, "should have known that fellow. He would have found him a place among his Lantern Bearers." Flint continued. "From the pond I walked down Fifth Avenue." "It's Fifth Avenue," said Flannel Shirt, "everything up above Fifty-ninth Street--and what it stands for, that I want to get away from." "Easy, Flannel Shirt," said Flint. "Fifth Avenue doesn't interest me much either. It's too lonely. Everybody is always away. The big stone buildings
aren't homes: they are points of departure