a feller got up on to his hind legs and hit the other feller over the head with a club; and if he was hungry he used him as a lunch.  Now we don’t do that.  We break him for his dollars and leave him and his poor wife and kids hungry, while we buy a lunch with the stuff we beat out of him.  Why do we work?  For one of two elegant notions.  It’s either to fill ourselves up with the things we’ve dreamt about when appetite was sharp set, and hate to death when we get, or it’s to satisfy a conceit that leaves us hoping and believing the rest of the world’ll hand us an epitaph like it handed no other feller since ever it got to be a habit burying up the garbage death produces.  Why do we fight and hate?  Because we’re poor darn fools that don’t know better, and don’t know the easy thing life would be without those things.  And as for settin’ our noses into the affairs of other folk, that’s mostly disease.  But it isn’t all.  No, sir.  There’s more to it than that,” he laughed.  “If it was just disease it wouldn’t matter a lot, but it isn’t.  There isn’t a fool man or woman born into this world that doesn’t reckon he or she can put right the fool notions and acts of other fools.  And when the other feller persuades them the game’s not the one-sided racket they guessed it was, then they get mad, and start groping and scheming how to boost their notions on to a world that’s spent a whole heap of time fixing things, mostly foolish, to its own mighty good satisfaction.  I say right here we’re fools if we aren’t crooks, which is the exception.  There’s a dandy world around us full of sun to warm us and food to eat, and birds to sing to us, and flowers and things to make us feel good.  If we needed more I guess Providence would have handed it out.  But it didn’t.  And so we got busy with our own notions till we’ve turned God’s elegant creation into a home for crazes and cranks.  I could almost fancy the Archangels hovering around, like those silly sea-gulls, with a bunch of straight-jackets to wrap about us when we jump the limit they figger we’ve a right to.  Fools, yes?  Why, I guess so—­sure.”

Nancy breathed a deep sigh.

“My, but that’s a big say.”

Then she broke into a laugh which found prompt response in the other.  It was cut short, however.  A sea thundered against the staunch side of the vessel and left her staggering.  The girl’s eyes became seriously anxious.  The straining chairs held, and presently the deck swung up to a comparative level.

“I had visions of the—­”

“Scuppers?” Bull laughed.  “Yes.  That sea’s one of the elegant things Providence handed out for our happiness.”

Nancy nodded.

“So man built things like the Myra, which, of course, was—­foolish?”

“An’ set out sailing around in a winter storm off Labrador, instead of basking in a pleasant tropical sun, which hasn’t any—­sense.”

Bull chuckled.

“All because two mighty fine enterprises reckoned they’d common interests which were jeopardised by rivalry, which was also—­foolishly?”