“Because he is taking himself with that exaggerated seriousness which is the trade-mark of the bore.” “Is a suicide a bore?” “Certainly. He is a man with a grievance, who, professing to accept life as a game of chances, cries out if the cards are against him. His tone may be clamorous or subdued; but it always carries the same refrain. At a certain point he would almost resent good fortune, for he hath persuaded himself that he is born the butt of Providence; and his vanity is such that he would not have even a diseased judgment of his refuted. Vanity, vanity--he is the very maggot of it.” “Continue, continue, my friend. This is not Coke or Lyttleton.” “Sir, I will continue. You decry my profession; but what doth it teach a man, if not to look below the surface? The suicide is he who will not take his own destinies in hand; for at heart he is a sensuous fellow, who hath subordinated his instinct for combativeness to a poor sentiment of fatality. In a world of noble struggle he would lie down and ignobly sleep. Thus, like a distempered cur, he turns and gnaws his own flesh; or, weakly despairing, stings himself to death like the fire-ringed scorpion.” The baronet sat amazed. “This is no lawyer,” he cried; “but a Wesley come to judgment!” The dried-stick of a man in the bows drew in his breath, and leaned forward, with moist eyes, the lids whereof were like dead sea-weed. “Oh, sir!” he cried, in a full voice, “let me entreat you--see the game out. If I lose and am disqualified, there is no whit the less interest in the play that goes on. There are plenty to continue it--plenty to profit by the lesson of my downfall. From being pupil I have become teacher; and shall I by self-destruction diminish the number of that blest company?” “My good sir,” said the baronet, with some emotion (and, “Pull your right scull,” said the lawyer anxiously), “you have a great advantage of me; but I respect and honour your sentiments. Why I should find you here, or why you should take an interest in my fate, passes my comprehension.” “No doubt,” said the other. “I know you, I think, by sight,” said Sir Robert. “You are a member of ‘Whitelaw’s,’ if I am not greatly mistaken.” “I was elected five years ago. Recently, I have presumed to take a watchful interest in your fortunes, as they were presented to me by report and by actual observation. I have sorely marked you--I crave your indulgence--in your race to the devil.” “I have a good mount. I shall win.” “Sir! sir!” “Why, what a to-do is this! Do you disparage your master? I am no attorney; yet I could prove black the very moral of innocence.” “As how?” “As thus. To desire--conscious of unworthiness--one’s own salvation, is to aim at self-aggrandisement. To be careless of one’s own salvation, is to be unselfish. To be opposed to one’s own salvation, is to be actually virtuous. The devil may be considered the Apostle of this creed--_ergo_, the devil teaches virtue.”