ider themselves more moral than their neighbors. Three--it's a
theory so convenient to their security that they would be exceptionally
good people if they did not adopt it; but, from your account, they are
not so much exceptionally as just typically good people. What you call
their sense of duty, Stanley, is really their sense of self-preservation
coupled with their sense of superiority."

"H'm!" said Stanley; "I don't know that I quite follow you."

"I always hate an odor of sanctity. I'd prefer them to say frankly:
'This is my property, and you'll jolly well do what I tell you, on it.'"

"But, my dear chap, after all, they really ARE superior."

"That," said Felix, "I emphatically question. Put your Mallorings to
earn their living on fifteen to eighteen shillings a week, and where
would they be? The Mallorings have certain virtues, no doubt, natural to
their fortunate environment, but of the primitive virtues of patience,
hardihood, perpetual, almost unconscious self-sacrifice, and cheerfulness
in the face of a hard fate, they are no more the equals of the people
they pretend to be superior to than I am your equal as a man of
business."

"Hang it!" was Stanley's answer, "what a d--d old heretic you are!"

Felix frowned. "Am I? Be honest! Take the life of a Malloring and take
it at its best; see how it stands comparison in the ordinary virtues with
those of an averagely good specimen of a farm-laborer. Your Malloring is
called with a cup of tea, at, say, seven o'clock, out of a nice, clean,
warm bed; he gets into a bath that has been got ready for him; into
clothes and boots that have been brushed for him; and goes down to a room
where there's a fire burning already if it's a cold day, writes a few
letters, perhaps, before eating a breakfast of exactly what he likes,
nicely prepared for him, and reading the newspaper that best comforts his
soul; when he has eaten and read, he lights his cigar or his pipe and
attends to his digestion in the most sanitary and comfortable fashion;
then in his study he sits down to steady direction of other people,
either by interview or by writing letters, or what not. In this way,
between directing people and eating what he likes, he passes the whole
day, except that for two or three hours, sometimes indeed seven or eight
hours, he attends to his physique by riding, motoring, playing a game, or
indulging in a sport that he has chosen for himself. And, at the end of
all th