"We shall have a virgin Lord Chancellor on the woolsack," said Gilbert, "and then may God have mercy on all poor litigants!" "We really ought to go to bed," Ninian protested. "Not yet," Henry exclaimed. He had recovered from his feeling of dejection, and he was eager to retrieve the good opinion which he thought he had lost. "My own view," he said, beginning as they always began their oracular pronouncements, "my own view is that we make the mistake of thinking in masses instead of in individuals. Everybody who tries to reform the world, tries to make it uniform, but what we want is the most complete diversity that's obtainable. It's the variations from type that make type bearable!..." "That's a good phrase, Quinny. Where'd you get it from?" Gilbert interrupted. Henry flushed with pleasure. "I made it up," he answered. "All men are different," he went on, "and therefore the morals that suit one person are unlikely to suit another person. Roger doesn't bother about women. He looks upon them as a ... a sideline. Don't you, Roger? He'll marry in due course, and he'll have one woman, and he'll have her all to himself. Won't you, Roger?" "Probably," Roger replied, "but there's no certainty about these things." Henry proceeded. "Gilbert wants lots and lots of women, but he doesn't want to talk about it, and he wants to keep his women and his work separate ... in watertight compartments, as it were. As if you could do that! And Ninian wants to have a good old hearty coarse time like ... like Tom Jones ... and then he'll repent and praise God and lay his stick about the backsides of all the young sinners he meets!" "No, I don't, ..." said Ninian, but Henry, having started, would not let himself be interrupted. "I want to have lots and lots of women," he went on hurriedly, "but I don't care who knows about them. I like talking about my love-affairs...." "Well, why don't you talk about 'em?" Gilbert demanded. Henry was nonplussed. His speech became hesitant. "I ... I said I'd like to talk about them," he replied. "I didn't say I would do so...." He hurried away from the subject. "But chiefly," he said, "I don't want anything permanent in my life. Now, do you understand? Roger's like the Rock of Ages ... the same yesterday, to-day and forever, but I want to be different to-morrow from what I am to-day, and different again the day after. Endless variety for me!" "It'll be an awful lot of trouble," said Gilbert. "That doesn't matter. Now my argument is that I have a different nature from Roger and all of you, but I'm not a worse man than any of you are...." "No, no, of course not," they asserted.