this room was covered with straw, it was possible
to approach that way without making much noise. For this reason, two
others of our party had been able to join us without our observing it.
Their names were Parry and Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just
getting into practice at the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in
years, though a very precocious one, whom I had brought with me,
ostensibly as a pupil, but really as a companion. He was an eager
student of philosophy, and had something of that contempt of youth for
any one older than twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart
to resent, though have long passed the age which qualifies me to
become the object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate
way he had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was
proceeding.

"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without choice one
would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every random mood and
impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"

Ellis looked round rather amused.

"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that
impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad
calculation any day!"

"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good and
Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."

"What _is_ your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been trying in
vain to make head or tail of it"

"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest
against this bullying."

"But you _must_ take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are to
discuss."

"I don't see why; you might take one instead."

"Yes, but you began."

"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then, to
go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are so many
different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion
has been discovered for testing these opinions----"

"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that from
the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a substantial
agreement about what is good."

"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, let
me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, that
there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and
that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I hold that we
have no reason to attach any validity to these opinions, or to suppose
that it is possible to