GISSING: Do you believe in Right and Wrong? I mean, are they
absolute, or only relative?

MIKE: When I was in my prime Right was Right, and Wrong was Wrong. A
bone, buried on someone else's ground, was sacred. I would not have
dreamed of digging it up----

GISSING (_hastily_): But I am genuinely puzzled. Suppose a motor
truck goes down the road. My instinct tells me that I ought to chase
it and bark loudly. But if God is around He calls me back and
rebukes me, sometimes painfully. Yet I am convinced that there is
nothing essentially wrong in my action.

MIKE: The question of morals is not involved. If you were not so
young and foolish you would know that your God (if you so call Him,
though He is not a patch on mine) knows what is good for you better
than you do yourself. He forbids your chasing cars because you might
get hurt.

GISSING: Then instinct is not to be obeyed?

MIKE: Not when God is around.

GISSING: Yet He encourages me to chase sticks, which my instinct
strongly impels me to do. Prosit! Waes hael! Excuse my enthusiasm,
but you really know very little of the world or you would not take
things so calmly.

MIKE: My dear boy, rheumatism is a great sedative. You will learn by