"Because it isn't true," he said.
"When there are two men and only food for one? You'd fight me to the death for that one loaf."
"In practice, yes. Theoretically, I should halve it with you. That's the sort of public-school idea."
"And it doesn't square with the practice. I'm out for the loaves before someone else gets them."
"Always assuming he isn't stronger than you," said Loring.
"Then I'll try and make myself stronger than him."
"And the end of the world will come when the strongest man has starved everyone else. A happy world, O'Rane, a happy end to it, and a glorious use of physical strength."
"That's been the world's rule so far."
"Utter bunkum!" Loring stopped and faced his antagonist. We had reached the cricket ground and the beginning of bounds, so that O'Rane no longer needed a convoy. "For the first years of your life you were so weak that it took one woman to feed you and another to put your clothes on so that you shouldn't die of exposure. On your theory there wouldn't be a woman left alive, far less a child. You must find some other answer to the riddle of existence. You can't do much with all-round hate and promiscuous throat-cutting."