He was, in fact, at this point already very ill and avoided tiring himself unless perhaps there was a prospect of pleasure to be had. But only meetings with people he did not yet know, and whom his ardent imagination probably thought of as having a chance of being different from the rest, fell into this category. So far as those he already knew were concerned, he knew too well what they were like and what they would be like, and they no longer seemed worth the bother of his becoming dangerously, perhaps even fatally tired. In short, he was a very poor friend.
