"It worked like a charm, George; and now, old fellow, don’t hold a grudge against me. I have taught you more than you ever learned before; I have shown you that a man can do almost anything—that men are but children to be deluded by trickery. There, for instance, is a judge, a man who was set up to pass upon the actions of men. What did I do? Convinced him that his own son is a robber. Was that right? Perhaps. Why should such a man have been a judge? What wrongs may not his shortsightedness have caused him to commit? We can’t tell. He may have committed a thousand unconscious crimes. But an unconscious crime may be just as bad as a conscious one. He has been sitting above other men. Now let him suffer; it is due him. And his son! What does he care for you or me? He reads, and thinks that he is wise. He has stuffed himself with the echo of feeble minds; and now let him wallow in his wisdom. Look at me. Are you sorry for what we have done? Look at me." Bodney made an effort to get up, but his strength seemed to fail him, and he remained as he was, gazing at Goyle. "George," Goyle continued, his eyes glittering, "I was the hope of a father, a better man than Judge Elbridge. But he was ruined by honest men and died of a broken heart. That was all right; it was a part of life’s infamous plan. Everything is all right—-a part of the plan. My friends called me a genius; they believed that I was to astonish the world, and I believed it. I bent myself to study, but one day the bubble burst and I felt then that nothing amounted to anything—that all was a fraud. The world is the enemy of every man. Every man is the natural enemy of every other man. Evil has always triumphed and always will. The churches meet to reform their creeds. After a while they must revise out God—another bubble, constantly bursting. Then, why should there be a conscience? That’s the point I want to make. Why should you and I suffer on account of anything we have done? Everything you see will soon pass away. Nothing is the only thing eternal. Then, let us make the most of our opportunities for animal enjoyment. The animal is the only substance. Intellectuality is a shadow. Are you sorry for what I have done?" He fixed his glittering eyes upon Bodney, and, gazing at him, Bodney answered: "No, I am not. It was marked out for us, and I don’t suppose we could help it; but somehow—somehow, I wish that I had killed you." "What for? to cut off a few days of animalism—to make of me an eternal nothing? That wouldn’t have done any good." "It would have prevented the misery—" Goyle stopped him with a snap of his fingers. "For how long? For a minute. It will all pass away. Be cheerful, now. We haven’t any money as a reward of our enterprise and art, but we have let the life blood out of all suspicion attaching to us. Let us go to bed." "You go to bed. I will lie on the floor." "No use to put yourself out, George. I’ll lie on the floor."