"D'ye know, Hump," he said, with a slow seriousness which had in it
an indefinable strain of sadness, "that this is the first time I
have heard the word 'ethics' in the mouth of a man. You and I are
the only men on this ship who know its meaning."

"At one time in my life," he continued, after another pause, "I
dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language,
that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had
been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talked
about just such things as ethics. And this is the first time I
have ever heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the way, for
you are wrong. It is a question neither of grammar nor ethics, but
of fact."

"I understand," I said. "The fact is that you have the money."

His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. "But
it is avoiding the real question," I continued, "which is one of
right."

"Ah," he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, "I see you still
believe in such things as right and wrong."

"But don't you?--at all?" I demanded.

"Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to
it. Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it
is good for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak--
or better yet, it is pleasurable to be strong, because of the