ve. Oh, yes, I advise it seriously. You'll lose nothing--not even a
reputation.--You may lose a SOUL, of course. But that's a detail, among
such a hoard of banknotes and trouser-buttons. Ha-ha! What's a soul, to
them--?"

"What is it to you, is perhaps the more pertinent question," said Algy,
flapping his eyelids like some crazy owl. "It is you who specialise in
the matter of soul, and we who are in need of enlightenment--"

"Yes, very true, you ARE! You ARE in need of enlightenment. A set of
benighted wise virgins. Ha-ha-ha! That's good, that--benighted wise
virgins! What--" Argyle put his red face near to Aaron's, and made a
_moue_, narrowing his eyes quizzically as he peered up from under his
level grey eyebrows. "Sit in the dark to save the lamp-oil--And all no
good to them.--When the bridegroom cometh--! Ha-ha! Good that! Good,
my boy!--The bridegroom--" he giggled to himself. "What about the
bridegroom, Algy, my boy? Eh? What about him? Better trim your wick, old
man, if it's not too late--"

"We were talking of souls, not wicks, Argyle," said Algy.

"Same thing. Upon my soul it all amounts to the same thing. Where's the
soul in a man that hasn't got a bedfellow--eh?--answer me that! Can't be
done you know. Might as well ask a virgin chicken to lay you an egg."

"Then there ought to be a good deal of it about," said Algy.

"Of what? Of soul? There ought to be a good deal of soul about?--Ah,
because there's a good deal of--, you mean.--Ah, I wish it were so. I
wish it were so. But, believe me, there's far more damned chastity in
the world, than anything else. Even in this town.--Call it chastity, if
you like. I see nothing in it but sterility. It takes a rat to praise
long tails. Impotence set up the praise of chastity--believe me
or not--but that's the bottom of it. The virtue is made out of the
necessity.--Ha-ha-ha!--Like them! Like them! Ha-ha! Saving their souls!
Why they'd save the waste matter of their bodies if they could. Grieves
them to part with it.--Ha! ha!--ha!"

There was a pause. Argyle was in his cups, which left no more to be
said. Algy, quivering and angry, looked disconcertingly round the
room as if he were quite calm and collected. The deaf Jewish Rosen was
smiling down his nose and saying: "What was that last? I didn't catch
that last," cupping his ear with his hand in the frantic hope that
someone would answer. No one paid any heed.

"I shall be going," said Algy, looking round. Then to