"So you're afraid, eh?" he sneered.

"Yes," I said defiantly and honestly, "I am afraid."

"That's the way with you fellows," he cried, half angrily,
"sentimentalizing about your immortal souls and afraid to die. At
sight of a sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging of life
to life overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow,
you will live for ever. You are a god, and God cannot be killed.
Cooky cannot hurt you. You are sure of your resurrection. What's
there to be afraid of?

"You have eternal life before you. You are a millionaire in
immortality, and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose
fortune is less perishable than the stars and as lasting as space
or time. It is impossible for you to diminish your principal.
Immortality is a thing without beginning or end. Eternity is
eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on living
somewhere else and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this
shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit.
Cooky cannot hurt you. He can only give you a boost on the path
you eternally must tread.

"Or, if you do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost
Cooky? According to your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal
millionaire. You cannot bankrupt him. His paper will always
circulate at par. You cannot diminish the length of his living by
killing him, for he is without beginning or end. He's bound to go
on living, somewhere, somehow. Then boost him. Stick a knife in
him and let his spirit free. As it is, it's in a nasty prison, and