"Would it be convenient to mention exactly what you do find it possible to believe in?" "In work, and grit, and Walter Corri. In doing your honest best in the profession you've chosen for the sake of the profession, not in the hope of what it's going to do for you. You can't, quite--that's the devil of it! Your own private ambitions _will_ obtrude themselves sometimes; but they're only vanity, when all's said and done--just meant for the fuel. What does nine out of ten men's success do for anyone but the nine men? Leaving out the great truths, the discoveries that benefit the human race for all time, what more good does a man effect in his success than he did in his obscurity? Who wants to see him succeed, excepting perhaps his mother--who's dead before he does it? Who's the better for his success? who does he think will be any better off for it? Nobody but No. 1! Then, whenever the vanity's sore and rubbed the wrong way, you'd have him go to his friends and take it out of them. What a selfish beast!" "Bosh!" said Corri. "Oh, I know it isn't argument, but 'bosh!'" "My dear fellow----" "My dear fellow, you had a rough time of it yourself for any number of years, and----" "And they've left their mark. Very naturally! What then?" "Simply that now you want to stunt all humanity in the unfortunate mould that was clapped on _you_. You understand the right of every pain to shriek excepting mental pain. You'd sit up all night pitying the whimpers of a child with a splintered finger, but if a man made a moan because his heart was broken, you'd call him a 'selfish beast'!" Kincaid ejected a circlet of smoke, and watched it sail away before he answered. "'Weak,'" he said, "I think I should call that 'weak.' It was a very good sentence, though, if not quite accurate. This reminds me of old times; it takes me back ten years to sit in your room and have you bully me. There's something in it, Corri; circumstances are responsible for a deuce of a lot, and we're all of us accidents. I'm a bad case, you tell me; I dare say it's true. You're a good chap to put up with me." "Don't be a fool," said Corri. The "fool" stared into the coals, nursing his big knee. He seemed to be considering his chum's accusation.