"Oh, you're simply exasperating. You've been reading Nietzsche till you haven't got any sense of moral proportion left. May I ask if you are governed by _any_ laws of conduct whatever?" "There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort. For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden." "The restraint must be dreadfully irksome to you. When I was younger, boys of your age used to be nice and innocent." "Now we are only nice. One must specialise in these days. Which reminds me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of what he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honours and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to him also." "I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book." "Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett." REGINALD'S PEACE POEM "I'm writing a poem on Peace," said Reginald, emerging from a sweeping operation through a tin of mixed biscuits, in whose depths a macaroon or two might yet be lurking. "Something of the kind seems to have been attempted already," said the Other. "Oh, I know; but I may never have the chance again. Besides, I've got a new fountain pen. I don't pretend to have gone on any very original lines; in writing about Peace the thing is to say what everybody else is saying, only to say it better. It begins with the usual ornithological emotion-- 'When the widgeon westward winging Heard the folk Vereeniginging, Heard the shouting and the singing'"-- "Vereeniginging is good, but why widgeon?" "Why not? Anything that winged westward would naturally begin with a _w_." "Need it wing westward?" "The bird must go somewhere. You wouldn't have it hang around and look foolish. Then I've brought in something about the heedless hartebeest galloping over the deserted veldt." "Of course you know it's practically extinct in those regions?" "I can't help _that_, it gallops so nicely. I make it have all sorts of unexpected yearnings-- 'Mother, may I go and maffick, Tear around and hinder traffic?' Of course you'll say there would be no traffic worth bothering about on the bare and sun-scorched veldt, but there's no other word that rhymes with maffick." "Seraphic?" Reginald considered. "It might do, but I've got a lot about angels later on. You must have angels in a Peace poem; I know dreadfully little about their habits." "They can do unexpected things, like the hartebeest." "Of course. Then I turn on London, the City of Dreadful Nocturnes, resonant with hymns of joy and thanksgiving-- 'And the sleeper, eye unlidding, Heard a voice for ever bidding Much farewell to Dolly Gray; Turning weary on his truckle- Bed he heard the honey-suckle Lauded in apiarian lay.' Longfellow at his best wrote nothing like that."