children disowns his parents."

"Sounds like a proverb."

"It is not. Just an observation. I suppose since you have not had the
time to marry you have devoted your life to good works."

"I have given employment to many, and help to the pauperized."

"It is commanded to be charitable."

"I have given millions of dollars--hundreds of thousands of pounds to
philanthropies."

"Anonymously, of course. You must be a godly man, sir."

"I am an agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing."

He shook his head. "Beneath us there are fish who do not know it is the
sea in which they swim; above us there are birds unaware of the reaches
of the sky. The fish have no conception of sky; the birds know nothing
of the deep. They are agnostics also."

"Well, it doesnt seem to do them any harm. Fishes continue to spawn and
birds to nest without the benefits of esoteric knowledge."

"Exactly. Fish remain fish in happy ignorance; doubt does not cause a
bird to falter in its flight."

The sun was pushed into the air from the waters as a ball is pushed by
the thumb and forefinger. The chalkcliffs were outlined ahead of me and
I calculated we had little more than an hour to go. "You have chosen a
strange way of earning a living, my friend," I ventured at last.

"Upon some is laid the yoke of the Law, others depend upon the sun for
light," he said. "Perhaps, like yourself, I have committed some great
sin and am expiating it in this manner."

"I don't know what you mean. I am conscious of no sin--if I understand
the meaning of the theological term."

"'We have trespassed,'" he murmured dreamily, "'we have been faithless,
we have robbed, we have spoken basely, we have committed iniquity, we
have wrought unrighteousness----'"

"Since the rational world discarded the superstitions of religion
halfacentury ago," I said, "we have learned that good and evil are
relative terms; without meaning, actually."

For the first time he suspended his oars and the boat wallowed crazily.
"Excuse me," he resumed his exertions. "Good is evil sometimes and evil
is good upon occasion?"

"It depends on circumstances and the point of view. What is beneficial
at one time and place may be detrimental under other circumstances."

"Ah. Green is green today, but it was yellow yesterday and will be blue
tomorrow."

"Even such an exaggeration could be defended; however, that was not my
meaning."

"'We have wrought unrighteousness, we have been pr