"Oh I'll give it another leg or two! Boats can be big, in the infinite of space, and a doctrine's a raft that floats the better the more passengers it carries. A passenger jumps over from time to time, not so much from fear of sinking as from a want of interest in the course or the company. He swims, he plunges, he dives, he dips down and visits the fishes and the mermaids and the submarine caves; he goes from craft to craft and splashes about, on his own account, in the blue, cool water. The regenerate, as I call them, are the passengers who jump over in search of better fun. I jumped over long ago." "And now of course you're at the head of the regenerate; for, in your turn"--Nick found the figure delightful--"you all form a select school of porpoises." "Not a bit, and I know nothing about heads--in the sense you mean. I've grown a tail if you will; I'm the merman wandering free. It's the jolliest of trades!" Before they had gone many steps further Nick Dormer stopped short with a question. "I say, my dear fellow, do you mind mentioning to me whether you're the greatest humbug and charlatan on earth, or a genuine intelligence, one that has sifted things for itself?" "I do lead your poor British wit a dance--I'm so sorry," Nash replied benignly. "But I'm very sincere. And I _have_ tried to straighten out things a bit for myself." "Then why do you give people such a handle?" "Such a handle?" "For thinking you're an--for thinking you're a mere _farceur_." "I daresay it's my manner: they're so unused to any sort of candour." "Well then why don't you try another?" Nick asked. "One has the manner that one can, and mine moreover's a part of my little system." "Ah if you make so much of your little system you're no better than any one else," Nick returned as they went on. "I don't pretend to be better, for we're all miserable sinners; I only pretend to be bad in a pleasanter, brighter way--by what I can see. It's the simplest thing in the world; just take for granted our right to be happy and brave. What's essentially kinder and more helpful than that, what's more beneficent? But the tradition of dreariness, of stodginess, of dull, dense, literal prose, has so sealed people's eyes that they've ended by thinking the most natural of all things the most perverse. Why so keep up the dreariness, in our poor little day? No one can tell me why, and almost every one calls me names for simply asking the question. But I go on, for I believe one can do a little good by it. I want so much to do a little good," Gabriel Nash continued, taking his companion's arm. "My persistence is systematic: don't you see what I mean? I won't be dreary--no, no, no; and I won't recognise the necessity, or even, if there be any way out of it, the accident, of dreariness in the life that surrounds me. That's enough to make people stare: they're so damned stupid!" "They think you so damned impudent," Nick freely explained.