"I always try to be serious, though it's very difficult with the people who come to my house." Stephen was hypocritically grave. "Ye're serious because ye're an atheist," observed Dennehy. "I'm not an atheist, Dick." "The Pope'd call you one, and that's enough for a good Catholic like me. How shouldn't you behave yourself properly when you don't believe that penitence can do you any good?" "The weak spot about penitence," remarked Tora, "is that it doesn't do the other party any good." Winnie ventured a meek question: "The other party?" "There always is one," said Mrs. Lenoir. Stephen smiled. "I always like to search for a contradictory instance. Now, if a man drinks himself to death, he benefits the revenue, he accelerates the wealth of his heirs, promotes the success of his rivals, gratifies the enmity of his foes, and enriches the conversation of his friends. As for his work--if he has any--_il n'y a pas d'homme nécessaire_." "It seems to me it would be all right if nobody wasted time and trouble over stopping him," said Dennehy--a teetotaller, and the next instant quaffing ginger-beer immoderately. "He would be sure to be hurting somebody," said Mrs. Lenoir. "And why not hurt somebody? I'm sure somebody's always hurting me," Dennehy objected hotly. "How would the world get on else? Don't I hold my billet only till a better man can turn me out?" "Yes," said Stephen. "'The priest who slew the slayer, and shall himself be slain'--that system's by no means obsolete in modern civilization." "Obsolete! It's the soul of it, its essence, its gospel." It was Mrs. Lenoir who spoke. "A definition of competition?" asked Stephen. "Yes, and of progress--as they call it." Tora Aikenhead was consolatory, benign, undismayed. "To be slain when you're old and weak--what of that?" "But ye don't think ye're old and weak. That's the shock of it," cried Dennehy. "It is rather a shock," Mrs. Lenoir agreed. "The truth about yourself is always a shock--or even another person's genuine opinion." Winnie Maxon remembered how she had administered to her husband his "awful facer"; she recollected also, rather ruefully, that he had taken it well. You always have to hurt somebody, even when you want so obvious a right as freedom! A definite declaration of incompatibility must be wounding--at any rate when it is not mutual.