“You’ve put me out. What the blazes were we talking about?”
“The present world condition,” replied Quong Ho.
“Then I assert,” said Baltazar, “that the present state of the world is rotten. It’s no place for intellectual reformers like you and me. What are the words of Confucius known to every schoolboy? ‘With sincerity and truth unite a desire for self-culture. Lay down your life rather than quit the path of virtue. Enter not a state which is tottering to its fall. When Law obtains in the Empire let yourself be seen: when lawlessness reigns, retire into obscurity.’ ”
“But supposing,” persisted Quong Ho, “the state of the devil-driven world is of vital interest?”
“It can be of vital interest only to those hurtling down to destruction. To us, who have retired into the obscure aloofness recommended by the great philosopher, it can be of no possible concern.”
“It is well,” said Quong Ho.
“I know it is,” remarked Baltazar, with a yawn. “Another night let us have a slightly more intelligent conversation.”
Quong Ho retired, his conscience finally set at rest. After all, was not his master right? What could he do of any use in the world rudely at war? Was he not serving the truest interests of humanity by retiring at this juncture and devoting the harvest of his great learning to a future generation?
“Soldiers,” said Quong Ho the next day, looking into the unspeculative topaz eyes of the goat which he had been milking, “are as numerous as the sands of the desert, and politicians as the mosquitoes in a swamp; they are swept away and the world misses them not; but philosophers are rare, and the loss of one of them is a supreme world calamity.”
“Baa-a-a!” said the goat.