"
"Nothing!"
"Nothing; that is my strong point; that is why I am here. I have
never done any wrong."
"And what good have you done?"
"What good!"
"Aye, what good? Do not you even know the meaning of the word?
What human creature is the better for your having eaten and drunk
and slept these years? You have done no harm--no harm to yourself.
Perhaps, if you had you might have done some good with it; the two
are generally to be found together down below, I remember. What
good have you done that you should enter here? This is no mummy
chamber; this is the place of men and women who have lived, who have
wrought good--and evil also, alas!--for the sinners who fight for
the right, not the righteous who run with their souls from the
fight."
It was not, however, to speak of these things that I remembered The
Amateur and its lessons. My intention was but to lead up to the
story of a certain small boy, who in the doing of tasks not required
of him was exceedingly clever. I wish to tell you his story,
because, as do most true tales, it possesses a moral, and stories
without a moral I deem to be but foolish literature, resembling
roads that lead to nowhere, such as sick folk tramp for exercise.
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