"What I want to know, Ned, is this," he drawled, "who started sin in this world, anyhow? What makes a good thing good and what makes a bad thing bad, and who said so first?"
"That's what I'd like to know myself, Tom," Ned gravely answered.
"An' ye don't know?"
"I certainly do not."
"I don't see why any man that can spell like you don't know everything."
He paused, picked up a pebble and threw it at a comrade's foot and laughed to see him jump as from a Minie ball.
"You know, Ned," he went on slowly, "what I think is the prettiest piece of poetry?"
"No—what?"
"Hit's this:
"'The men of high condition
That rule affairs of State;
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate.'"