"There is no reason," Lamuse avers.
"Yes, there is," says Cocon. "It's—or rather, there are several."
"Shut it up! Much better to have no reason, as long as we've got to stick it."
"All the same," comes the hollow voice of Blaire, who lets no chance slip of airing his pet phrase—"All the same, they'd like to steal the very skin off us!"
"At the beginning of it," says Tirette, "I used to think about a heap of things. I considered and calculated. Now, I don't think any more."
"Nor me either."
"Nor me."
"I've never tried to."
"You're not such a fool as you look, flea-face," says the shrill and jeering voice of Mesnil Andre. Obscurely flattered, the other develops his theme—
"To begin with, you can't know anything about anything."