“So do I,” said Pan. “All good people like eating. Every person who is hungry is a good person, and every person who is not hungry is a bad person. It is better to be hungry than rich.”
Caitilin having supplied the children with food, seated herself in front of them. “I don’t think that is right,” said she. “I have always been hungry, and it was never good.”
“If you had always been full you would like it even less,” he replied, “because when you are hungry you are alive, and when you are not hungry you are only half alive.”
“One has to be poor to be hungry,” replied Caitilin. “My father is poor and gets no good of it but to work from morning to night and never to stop doing that.”
“It is bad for a wise person to be poor,” said Pan, “and it is bad for a fool to be rich. A rich fool will think of nothing else at first but to find a dark house wherein to hide away, and there he will satisfy his hunger, and he will continue to do that until his hunger is dead and he is no better than dead but a wise person who is rich will carefully preserve his appetite. All people who have been rich for a long time, or who are rich from birth, live a great deal outside of their houses, and so they are always hungry and healthy.”
“Poor people have no time to be wise,” said Caitilin.
“They have time to be hungry,” said Pan. “I ask no more of them.”
“My father is very wise,” said Seumas Beg.
“How do you know that, little boy?” said Pan.
“Because he is always talking,” replied Seumas. “Do you always listen, my dear?”