"We could have settled it," said Meldon. "In fact we have settled it, but a question of vastly greater importance has arisen. We are threatened with something like an actual catastrophe."
"If it's the kind of catastrophe which involves an hour or so of solid talk, J. J., don't you think you could manage to put it off for a little? I shall be quite ready to go into it at any length you like this evening after dinner."
"Major," said Meldon, "if an earthquake came—the kind of earthquake which knocks down houses—and if thunderbolts were falling red-hot out of the sky, and if a large tidal wave was rushing up across the lawn, and if a moving bog was desolating your kitchen garden and engulfing your polo ponies, would you or would you not sit calmly there and go on with your accounts?"
"If all those things were happening I'd move, of course."
"There's no 'of course' about it. Some men wouldn't."
"Nonsense, J. J. The tidal wave alone—"
"Some men," repeated Meldon, "would sit on and finish their accounts. There was a soldier at Pompeii, for instance—they found his body centuries afterwards—who wouldn't stir from his post even when he saw the molten lava flowing down the street. I thought you might be that sort of man."
"I'm not."
"I'm glad to hear it. That sentry has been made a hero of. I've frequently heard him mentioned in sermons as a person to be imitated. In reality he was the worst kind of ass; and I wouldn't like to think of your getting embalmed as he did, and being dug out afterwards by an antiquary with a chisel. For the matter of that I shouldn't care to hear of people writing odes about you on account of your going under while your sword was in its sheath and your fingers held the pen."
"What was he doing with the pen?" said the Major. "If he was on sentry duty—"