Sir Robert leaned back. He was seated on the leather sofa. He let his
head rest on the shabby upholstery and studied the ceiling. In one hand
he held his cigar, in the other his monocle, tracing patterns in the air
with them. His hands are not thin, but the skin on them is crisscrossed
with fine wrinkles like the skin on his face and neck.
“My boy,” he began, after a rime, “I'm going to offer you a little
counsel. You won't take it, but I am going to offer it. Probably, at
your age, I should n't have taken it either.” He sighed. “I am an old
man. For forty-five years I have been observing men--and women. I have
seen--well, a good deal, one way and another. And the one fact I have
come to be sure of.... You know, Eckhart, the great mass of human
beings--in Europe and America, at least, labor under the curious
delusion that the race has finally worked out something of a
civilization. Curious, but they do. It is rot, of course. All rot. There
is no civilization. Life is quite as primitive as ever. Only we have
developed extraordinary ingenuity at covering life up. That's it. That's
our greatest triumph--covering up! At best, it is pretty messy business.
And all we can be sure of is that every man owes it to himself and his
legitimate offspring to save his skin at all costs, and incidentally, to
capture what little he can of the common booty.”
He made me nervous. I couldn't sit there indefinitely and listen to his
sordid philosophy.
He was quick to catch my mood, and went on more to the point. This
shiftiness is the seasoned lawyer in him, I suppose. He is pretty keen,
after all.
“Look here, Eckhart--there's no sense in men like you and me beating
about the bush. Crocker got blind drunk at Nagasaki, and missed
the Shanghai boat. That night he told me the same story that he had
doubtless told you. Or did n't he?”