“I don’t mind saying these things to you, Tom,” he said, “because I don’t think you are a fool. Do you remember when you told me you were going to be a sculptor, how I warned you against folly? A dislike of folly is the one thing I have successfully cultivated, and I should like put on my tombstone: ‘He hated a fool.’ Especially I hate those fools who talk about their consciences. Conscience is simply ecclesiastical argot for digestion. No man with a good digestion has a bad conscience. The health of the conscience varies with the health of the digestion.”
“But people with bad digestions have good consciences sometimes,” said Tom.
“Yes, because their health is so inferior that they cease thinking about their bodies, and as they have to think about something, they think about an imaginary existence which they call their souls.”
“Is that all your creed?” asked Tom. “I believe in my digestion.”
“No, it’s not my creed at all. It is a self-evident proposition; nobody makes creeds of self-evident propositions, or we should all say twice two are four every morning. My creed is, I believe in nothing, but I am amused at everything except the gout.”
Tom laughed and helped himself to some more port.
“I wish you had the gout, Tom,” went on the old gentleman; “it is perfectly loathsome to see you drinking port when I can’t. I never am quite sure whether I would sooner have port and gout or neither, but I believe that if one goes on drinking port when one has gout one dies. That would annoy me immensely. Any one can die.”
“Yes, it’s very easy,” said Tom. “I suppose that’s why every one does it.”
“It’s sheer laziness in most cases,” said his father; “people die when they cease to be interested in things. Unless, of course, they catch small-pox or cholera, but gentlemen don’t do such things.”
“Poor old Lambert is dead,” said Tom, after a pause; “he died this evening. May was with him.”