e is having his
bad time now, as I had mine last week. It is his own fault: he has no
need to be so censorious. He _had_ to say what he did, or there would be
trouble: some things a man cannot stand, and my best friend would be my
friend no longer, if he ventured to reflect upon the Princess.

"I'm glad to hear you say so: the difficulty is simple then, and easily
settled. You've got no pistols, of course, and I didn't bring mine. I'll
take your rifle, and you can borrow Hodge's old shotgun: if it bursts,
it won't be much loss--only you mustn't come too near me with it.
There's no danger of interference from the police up here, I judge? But
I say, what shall we do for a surgeon?"

"There you go again, turning everything into a jest. Can you never be
serious, man?"

"Try to say something original, James: that is stale. Jane asks me that
about six times a day, and Mabel frequently, and--and the others. I was
serious with you just now, or nearly: had I been entirely so, I might
have knocked the top of your head off, and then they would have blamed
me at home. You see, they think you are more of a man than you show
yourself. To be serious all the time is the most serious mistake one can
make in life; and I want no worse example than you. When I go back to
town I shall write the Decline and Fall of an Alleged Seeker after
Truth, who missed it by taking things too seriously. You are too stiff
and narrow and rigid and dogmatic: you take one point of view and stick
to it like grim death. You can't get at Truth in that way."

"I suppose you would stand on your head and look at it upside down, and
then turn a back somersault and view it from between your legs."

"You express it inelegantly, but you have caught the idea. Truth is not
a half pound package done up in brown paper and permanently deposited in
one corner of the pantry shelf; she is big and various and active. While
you have your head fixed in the iron grip and are staring at the sign
'Terms Cash,' she is off to the other side of the room--and you don't
make a good picture at all in that constrained attitude. Your mind has
got to be nimble and unbiassed if you want to overtake her, because she
is always changing: that is, she appears in new and--to you--unexpected
places. I gave you a hint of this in May, and another last summer, but
you seem to have forgotten it. O, I could sit here all night and
explain it to you, if you were in the right frame of mind."

"No do