“You go too far for me,” said his lordship, looking a little uncomfortable, “but I think it is time to try and break myself a little of the habit—or almost time. By degrees one might, you know,—eh?”
“I have little faith in doing things by degrees, my lord—except such indeed as by their very nature cannot be done at once. It is true a bad habit can only be contracted by degrees; and I will not say, because I do not know, whether anyone has ever cured himself of one by degrees; but it cannot be the best way. What is bad ought to be got rid of at once.”
“Ah, but, don’t you know? that might cost you your life!”
“What of that, my lord! Life, the life you mean, is not the first thing.”
“Not the first thing! Why, the Bible says, ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life’!”
“That is in the Bible; but whether the Bible says it, is another thing.”
“I do not understand silly distinctions.”
“Why, my lord, who said that?”
“What does it matter who said it?”
“Much always; everything sometimes.”