Chapter 28 - Page 2

it as I. For to-night I radiate benevolence."

He cut the cigar with care, he lit it with ceremony, waiting until
nothing but honest wood was burning on the match, and for fully a
minute he was silent, evolving huge puffs of smoke. And then he spoke
again, punctuating his words by varied and beautiful spirals. "So
far," he said, "I have only trifled with knavery."

As Lewisham said nothing he resumed after a pause.

"There are three sorts of men in the world, my boy, three and no
more--and of women only one. There are happy men and there are knaves
and fools. Hybrids I don't count. And to my mind knaves and fools are
very much alike."

He paused again.

"I suppose they are," said Lewisham flatly, and frowned at the
fireplace.

Chaffery eyed him. "I am talking wisdom. To-night I am talking a
particular brand of wisdom. I am broaching some of my oldest and
finest, because--as you will find one day--this is a special occasion.
And you are distrait!"

Lewisham looked up. "Birthday?" he said.

"You will see. But I was making golden observations about knaves and
fools. I was early convinced of the absolute necessity of
righteousness if a man is to be happy. I know it as surely as there is
a sun in the heavens. Does that surprise you?"

"Well, it hardly squares--"

"No. I know. I will explain all that. But let me tell you the happy
life. Let me give you that, as if I lay on my deathbed and this was a
parting gift. In the first place, mental integrity. Prove all things,
hold fast to that which is right. Let the world have no illusions for
you, no surprises. Nature is full of cruel catastrophes, man is a
physically degenerate ape, every appetite, every instinct, needs the
curb; salvation is not in the nature of things, but whatever salvation
there may be is in the nature of man; face all these painful things. I
hope you follow that?"

"Go on," said Lewisham, with the debating-society taste for a thesis
prevailing for a minute over that matter of the roses.

"In youth, exercise and learning; in adolescence, ambition; and in
early manhood, love--no footlight passion." Chaffery was very solemn
and insistent, with a lean extended finger, upon this point.

"Then marriage, young and decent, and then children and stout honest
work for them, work too for the State in which they live; a life of
self-devotion, indeed, and for sunset a decent pride--that is the
happy life. Rest assured that is the happy life; the life Natural
Selection has been shaping for man since life began. So a man may go
happy from the cradle to the grave--at