I never see
them again. England's full of nice young, bright young things crying
to get out. Let 'em all come! They can have my job and welcome!

HANCOCK (_to himself_). God! Why Dodd and Whiston? Why, why, why? Why
not me? Why just the fellows we can't afford to lose?

SMITH. Oh, for God's sake stow it! What the hell's the good of going
on like that? Of course I'm sorry for them and all that. But I don't
see that it's going to help them to make oneself miserable about it.

HANCOCK (_fiercely_). Sorry for them! It's not them I'm sorry for!
They ... they're the lucky ones! God! I suppose that's the answer!
They'd earned it!

SMITH (_satirically_). Have you turned pi? We shall have you saying
the prayers that you learnt at your mother's knee next, I suppose!
I shall have to tell the Padre, and he'll preach a sermon about it!
I should never have thought you would have been _frightened_ into
religion!

HANCOCK. Frightened! You little swine! _You_ talk about being
frightened after last night! I tell you I'd rather be lying out there
with Dodd and Whiston than be sitting here with you. Frightened into
religion!

SMITH. Oh, I suppose you're the next candidate for death or glory!
Good luck to you! I'm not competing. I'll do my job; but I'm not going
to make a fool of myself. Dodd and Whiston deserved all they got.
You're right there. You'll get what you deserve some day, I expect!
Don't look at me like that. I've said I'm sorry, and all that. But
it's the truth I'm speaking, all the same.

HANCOCK. And you'll get what you deserve too, I suppose, which is to
live in your own company till the end of your miserable existence. I
won't deprive you of your reward more than I can help, I promise you!

(HANCOCK _goes out._)

IX

THE WISDOM OF "A STUDENT IN ARMS"

It is no good trying to fathom "things" to the bottom; they have not
got one.

Knowledge is always descriptive, and never fundamental. We can
describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not the way
of it.

Agnosticism is a fundamental fact. It is the starting-point of the
wise man who has discovered that it needs eternity to study infinity.

Agnosticism, however, is no excuse for indolence. Because we cannot
know all, we need not therefore be totally ignorant.

The true wisdom is that in which all knowledge is subordinate to
practical aims, and blended into a working philosophy of life.

The true wisdom is that it is not what a ma