“Give Shakespeare credit for thinking it out further,” I said. ‘Julius Cæsar’ always was a favorite of mine and one thing I knew. “He said, ‘Men _at some time_ are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.’” Jerry nodded. “That’s right. My friend’s clever; he can see now, if he couldn’t when he was younger. Then there’s something else--a twist in his brain that’s not in mine? Yet I don’t know: maybe we’re identical, inwardly as well as outside. Maybe the difference is that I never knew what it was to want without being able, lawfully, to get. The cards are stacked in this game of civilization which we play.” That hit one of my pet ideas, as I’ve mentioned; so I objected, “No, they’re not.” “I remember what you think, Steve. I liked to think it too; but now I’ve gone from the side the cards favor to the side that gets the worst of the deal. What in the devil is law, Steve?” “Law?” I said. Again he laughed. “You said that, old Top, as though I’d asked ‘What is the sun?’ It shines on you so, Steve; to ask about it is to you the acme of foolish questions; but it’s not to the man who’s brought up under the cloud. What is law? I never even looked up a dictionary definition till I got talking to some of my present friends; now here’s just what Webster says: ‘A rule of conduct established by an authority able to enforce its will.’ That’s all there is to it--a set of rules drawn up by the first men on the ground, who’ve grabbed everything in sight, and who naturally want to perpetuate and increase their possessions. Hence they fix up a lot of rules in their favor which they call law. If you come along later, and are boob enough to believe it’s best to work with them, you’re a good lawful citizen; if you carry a few ideas of your own, and mean to get ahead without asking anybody’s permission, you’re a lawbreaker.” That peeved me; he saw it and smiled. “I’m quoting, Steve; quoting.” “Quoting who?” “Oh, philosophers with any number of aliases. There’s no philosopher like a flat-worker or a good gopher man. In the first place, they’ve plenty of time to think; their hours of actual effort are short, if rather intense; and between them are periods of leisure which may become decidedly protracted, if they’re picked up. Those who complain that the ancient Greek art of dialectics is declining simply confess the constriction of their acquaintance. Socrates--so I am convinced, Steve--was a burglar who’d served about two terms when he got so good that Plato picked him up, covered his past and wrote him down. Possibly you noticed in the delicatessen the other day a friend of mine not lacking in muscular development----” “Oh, the dyke-keeper!” I said. “What?” I explained.