Chapter 18 Ebbing Powers 
NE of the most affecting things about 
John Smith’s advancing age was the habit 
he fell into—few noticed it, and himself 
perhaps least of all—of letting a faint 
sound/of despondency escape him now and then. 
After a brief liveliness it would come—as if he 
had thought of something further to say, then 
felt it to be vanity after all—a sigh, an expression 
of tedium, a “‘ hm, hm,” in descending scale, no 
sooner uttered than suppressed. He _ talked, 
laughed, as of old; relapsed, as of old, into 
silence and then, presently, almost unnoticed, 
came the faint “‘ hm, hm, hm,” as of a disillusioned 
man. 
What did it mean? Was the pain he suffered 
racking him again? ‘That was the first hy- 
pothesis. He was in almost constant pain. 
Acute rheumatism—if it was not neuritis—took 
him across the hips and seldom left him. What 
more likely than that a twinge too hard to bear 
was drawing from him an involuntary and scarce- 
veiled groan? That’s just how he would have 
met cruel pain—momentarily allowing his feelings 
some outlet, and then checking himself for fear 
of distressing those he loved. 
Yet probably this was not the whole, if it was 
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