"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not actually bad, are at best indifferent—'sacs merely, floating with open mouths for food to slip in.'"
"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you know about them, considering how very little you've seen of them!"
"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this estimate?"
"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal better!"
"They might well be that," I replied, "without being particularly good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be better to confine ourselves to our own experience and consider whether for ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life much worth having, supposing death to be the end of it all."
"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis, "and so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather monstrous to ask the question at all."
"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most inconsistent of men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson for his acquiescence in the extinction of the individual 'with his opportunities unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the rest of it. And now you appear to be adopting precisely the same attitude yourself."
"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good enough for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful ruffian!"
"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I was a few years ago."
"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"