common sense. I cut out the race and the children. I would
sacrifice nothing for them. It's just so much slush and sentiment, and
you must see it yourself, at least for one who does not believe in
eternal life. With immortality before me, altruism would be a paying
business proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of altitudes.
But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief spell
this yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would be
immoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice
that makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,--and not only foolish,
for it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose one
crawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor will the
eternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easier or harder by the
sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I was yeasty and acrawl."

"Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, a
hedonist."

"Big words," he smiled. "But what is a hedonist?"

He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. "And you are also,"
I continued, "a man one could not trust in the least thing where it was
possible for a selfish interest to intervene?"

"Now you're beginning to understand," he said, brightening.

"You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?"

"That's it."

"A man of whom to be always afraid--"

"That's the way to put it."

"As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?"

"Now you know me," he said. "And you know me as I am generally known.
Other men call me 'Wolf.'"

"You are a sort of monster," I added audaciously, "a Caliban who has
pondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, by whim and
fancy."

His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and I quickly
learned that he did not know the poem.

"I'm just reading Browning," he confessed, "and it's pretty tough. I
haven't got very far along, and as it is I've about lost my bearings."

Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his
state-room and read "Caliban" aloud. He was delighted. It was a
primitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he understood
thoroughly. He interrupted again and again with comment and criticism.
When I finished, he had me read it over a second time, and a third. We
fell into discussion--philosophy, science, evolution, religion. He
betrayed the inac