“But suppose you went down somewhere else tomorrow,” said Mr. Boythorn, “where there was the opposite of that fellow—or of this fellow. How then?”
“How then?” said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost simplicity and candour. “Just the same then! I should say, ‘My esteemed Boythorn’—to make you the personification of our imaginary friend—‘my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate? Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody’s business in the social system is to be agreeable. It’s a system of harmony, in short. Therefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go to dinner!’ ”
“But excellent Boythorn might say,” returned our host, swelling and growing very red, “I’ll be ⸻”
“I understand,” said Mr. Skimpole. “Very likely he would.”
“⸻ if I will go to dinner!” cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. “And he would probably add, ‘Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?’ ”
“To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know,” he returned in his gayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, “ ‘Upon my life I have not the least idea! I don’t know what it is you call by that name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and I lay no claim to it, and I don’t want it!’ So, you see, excellent Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!”
This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always expected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other