Coote lit a new cigarette. "One can't help being interested in what you will do," he remarked. "Of course—for a young man of spirit, come suddenly into wealth—there's temptations."
"I got to go careful," said Kipps. "O' Bean told me that at the very first."
Coote went on to speak of pitfalls, of Betting, of Bad Companions. "I know," said Kipps, "I know." "There's Doubt again," said Coote. "I know a young fellow—a solicitor—handsome, gifted. And yet, you know—utterly sceptical. Practically altogether a Sceptic."
"Lor'!" said Kipps, "not a Natheist?"
"I fear so," said Coote. "Really, you know, an awfully fine young fellow—Gifted! But full of this dreadful Modern Spirit—Cynical! All this Overman stuff. Nietzsche and all that.... I wish I could do something for him."
"Ah!" said Kipps and knocked the ash off his cigarette. "I know a chap—one of our apprentices he was—once. Always scoffing.... He lef'!"
He paused. "Never wrote for his refs," he said, in the deep tone proper to a moral tragedy, and then, after a pause—"Enlisted!"
"Ah!" said Coote.
"And often," he said, after a pause, "it's just the most spirited chaps, just the chaps one likes best, who Go Wrong."