"I'm not going to ask you any questions," he said, "though I may have an idea about you in my head. But I'm pretty nearly twenty years older than you, I fancy, and I've knocked about a good bit, and I'll tell you one or two plain truths. When you talk like that, you assume that these things last. Well, in nine cases out of ten, they don't. I don't say that's nice, or amiable, or elevated, or anything else. I didn't make human nature, and I don't particularly admire it. But there it is--in nine cases out of ten, you know. And if you think you know a case that's the tenth----" This was exactly what Blake was sure he did know. "Yes, what then?" he asked defiantly. "Well," answered Caylesham slowly, "you be jolly sure first before you act on that impression. You be jolly well sure first--that's all." He paused and laughed. "That's not moral advice, or I wouldn't set up to give it. But it's a prudential consideration." "And if you are sure?" "Sure for both, I mean, you know." "Yes, sure for both." "Well, then you're in such a bad way that you'd better pack up and go to the Himalayas or somewhere like that without an hour's delay, because nothing else'll save you, you know." Blake laughed rather contemptuously. "After all, there have been cases----" "Perhaps--but I don't like such long odds." "Well, we've had your gospel. Now let's hear how it's worked in your case. Are you satisfied with that, Caylesham?" He spoke with a sneer that did not escape Caylesham's notice. It drew another smile from him. "That's a home question--I didn't question you as straight as that. Well, I'll tell you. I won't pretend to feel what I don't feel; I'll tell you as truly as I can." He paused a moment. "I've had lots of fun," he went on. "I've always had plenty of money; I've never had any work to do; and I took my fun--lots of it. I didn't expect to get it for nothing, and I haven't got it for nothing. Sometimes I got it cheap, and sometimes, one way and another, it mounted to a very stiff figure. But I didn't shirk settling day; and if there are any more settling days, I won't shirk them if I can help it. I don't think I've got anything to complain about." He put his cigar back into his mouth. "No, I don't think I have," he ended, twisting the cigar between his teeth. What a contempt for him young Blake had! Was ever man so ignorant of his true self? Was ever man so sunk in degradation and so utterly unconscious of it? Caylesham could look back on a life spent as his had been--could look back from the middle-age to which he had now come, and find nothing much amiss with it! Blake surveyed his grovelling form from high pedestals of courage and of wisdom--absolutely of virtue pure and undefiled. "Nothing very ideal about that!" "Good Lord, no! You wanted the truth, didn't you?" "Well, I suppose I thought like that once--I was contented with that once."