is, and what Susan
is, I am ready. Have with you! And by the way, Boz," he interjected,
sipping his wine, "your new housekeeper is one in a thousand. Mrs.
Parrot was admirable; I've been absurdly regretting her loss. But Mrs.
Parrot never quite rose to _this_!"

Phil's tongue clicked an impatient protest against the roof of his
mouth. "I am still unenlightened, Mr. Phar."

"True," said Maltby. "That's the worst of you romantic idealists. It's
your permanent condition." He settled back in his chair, and fell to his
old trick of slowly caressing the back of his left hand with the palm of
his right. "The world, my dear Mr. Farmer," he continued, "the universe,
indeed, as we have come gradually to know it, is an infinity of blindly
clashing forces. They have always existed, they will always exist; they
have always been blind, and they always will be. Anything may happen in
such an infinity, and we--this world of men and microbes--are one of the
things which has temporarily happened. It's regrettable, but it is so.
And though there is nothing final we can do about it, and very little in
any sense, still--this curious accident of the human intellect enables
us to do something. We can at least admit the plain facts of our
horrible case. Here, a self-realizing accident, we briefly are. Death
will dissipate us one by one, and the world in due time. That much we
know. But while we last, why must we add imaginary evils to our real
ones, and torment ourselves with false hopes and ridiculous fears?

"Why can't each one of us learn to say: 'I am an accident of no
consequence in a world that means nothing. I might be a stone, but I
happen to be a man. Hence, certain things give me pleasure, others pain.
And, obviously, in an accidental, meaningless world I can owe no duty to
anyone but myself. I owe it to myself to get as much pleasure and to
avoid as much pain as possible. Unswerving egotism should be my law.'"
He paused to sip again, with a side glance toward Phil.

"Elementary, all this, I admit. I apologize for restating it to a
scholar. But such are the facts as science reveals them--are they not?
You have to try somehow to go beyond science to get round them. And
where do you go--you romantic idealists? Where _can_ you go? Nowhere
outside of yourselves, I take it. So you plunge, perforce, down below
the threshold of reason into a mad chaos of instinct and desire and
dream. And what _there_ do you find? Bugaboos, my dear sir,