There are quite a lot of odd corners in the
place really."
"That," said Rupert, with a savage smile, "I can quite believe."
We were by this time in the study or back parlour, used by the
young inhabitants as a sitting-room, an apartment littered with
magazines and books ranging from Dante to detective stories. The
other youth, who stood with his back to the fire smoking a corncob,
was big and burly, with dead brown hair brushed forward and a
Norfolk jacket. He was that particular type of man whose every
feature and action is heavy and clumsy, and yet who is, you would
say, rather exceptionally a gentleman.
"Any more arguments?" he said, when introductions had been
effected. "I must say, Mr Grant, you were rather severe upon
eminent men of science such as we. I've half a mind to chuck
my D.Sc. and turn minor poet."
"Bosh," answered Grant. "I never said a word against eminent men
of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which
supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a
sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people
talked about the fall of man they knew they were talking about a
mystery, a thing they didn't understand. Now that they talk about
the survival of the fittest they think they do understand it,
whereas they have not merely no notion, they have an elaborately
false notion of what the words mean.
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