Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/85

 *ting a soft purr of contentment, "I am a common lawyer. The whys and wherefores are not my province; I take things as they are."

"That does not prevent all your instincts being up in arms when you encounter the unusual. How curious it is that the most deadly sin in the eyes of the average person is that shameless egotism which transacts the real business of the world."

"If there were no rules to which one had to conform," said the solicitor, "there would be no living in the world. Conventions to my mind are highly necessary. Of course every man has a perfect right to consider himself a tremendous fellow, but that is no reason why he should say as much to his neighbor. If he does, his neighbor will want to refute it."

"And if he should throw down his gage, and prove to his neighbor in a perfectly logical and scientific manner that he is a tremendous fellow, his neighbor will not be content with wanting to refute him; his neighbor will want to shoot him, or hang him, or burn him, or crucify him, and it is long odds that his neighbor will succeed in so doing."

"I am afraid I don't follow you."

"I am speaking of the fate that awaited upon the majority of the tremendous fellows whom we discover in the pages of history; the founders of the religions, the saints, the heroes, the discoverers, the makers of the philosophical systems."

"One suspects," said the solicitor, "it was because they made the world so uncomfortable while they were living in it."