“That’s what we do,” said Mangel. “We go back....”
A voice came from the shadow: “We got laws and governments ... we got arts and War, so we can go back comfortably. Yes.”
“We’re corrupted. Adam and Eve have damned us,” spoke the thrust, sure of itself, of Statt. “We don’t slump back. We’re naturally brutes.”
“I don’t believe you!” cried Mangel.
“Of course you don’t. You ain’t a Christian.”
“Nor you!” said Daniel Scome. “If we were naturally brutes, God would not bother about us.”
“Nor we about God,” said Fanny.
“It comes to the same thing. We are half way, I tell you. We got to push on ... or we got to fall back.”
Tessie sighed. “I am tired. I don’t want to do anything.”
“And I am tired too,” Susan chimed in. “So I don’t do anything. I don’t climb. I don’t fall. I’d like to see anyone of you budge me!”