Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 8.djvu/194

 yet, you know—utterly sceptical. Practically altogether a Sceptic."

"Lor'!" said Kipps, "not a Natheist?"

"I fear so," said Coote. "Really, you know, an awfully fine young fellow—Gifted! But full of this dreadful Modern Spirit—Cynical! All this Overman stuff. Nietzsche and all that I wish I could do something for him."

"Ah!" said Kipps and knocked the ash off his cigarette. "I knew a chap—one of our apprentices he was—once. Always scoffing He lef'!"

He paused. "Never wrote for his refs," he said, in the deep tone proper to a moral tragedy, and then, after a pause—"Enlisted!"

"Ah!" said Coote.

"And often," he said, after a pause, "it's just the most spirited chaps, just the chaps one likes best, who Go Wrong."

"It's temptation," Kipps remarked.

He glanced at Coote, leaned forward, knocked the ash from his cigarette into the mighty fender. "That's jest it," he said; "you get tempted. Before you know where you are."

"Modern life," said Coote, "is so—complex. It isn't everyone is Strong. Half the young fellows who go wrong, aren't really bad."

"That's jest it," said Kipps.

"One gets a tone from one's surroundings"

"That's exactly it," said Kipps.

He meditated. "I picked up with a chap," he said. "A Nacter. Leastways he writes plays. Clever feller. But"