“There is a simplicity which is the extremest development of refined sybarism,” the Wanderer said, smiling again.  “I know your simplicity of old.  It consists of getting precisely what you want, and in producing local earthquakes and revolutions when you cannot get it.  Moreover you want what is good—­to the taste, at least.”

“There is something in that,” answered Keyork with a merry twinkle in his eye.  “Happiness is a matter of speculation.  Comfort is a matter of fact.  Most men are uncomfortable, because they do not know what they want.  If you have tastes, study them.  If you have intelligence, apply it to the question of gratifying your tastes.  Consult yourself first—­and nobody second.  Consider this orange—­I am fond of oranges and they suit my constitution admirably.  Consider the difficulty I have had in procuring it at this time of year—­not in the wretched condition in which they are sold in the market, plucked half green in Spain or Italy and ripened on the voyage in the fermenting heat of the decay of those which are already rotten—­but ripe from the tree and brought to me directly by the shortest and quickest means possible.  Consider this orange, I say.  Do you vainly imagine that if I had but two or three like it I would offer you one?”

“I would not be so rash as to imagine anything of the kind, my dear Keyork.  I know you very well.  If you offer me one it is because you have a week’s supply at least.”

“Exactly,” said Keyork.  “And a few to spare, because they will only keep a week as I like them, and because I would no more run the risk of missing my orange a week hence for your sake, than I would deprive myself of it to-day.”

“And that is your simplicity.”

“That is my simplicity.  It is indeed a perfectly simple matter, for there is only one idea in it, and in all things I carry that one idea out to its ultimate expression.  That one idea, as you very well put it, is to have exactly what I want in this world.”

“And will you be getting what you want in having me quartered upon you as poor Israel Kafka’s keeper?” asked the Wanderer, with an expression of amusement.  But Keyork did not wince.

“Precisely,” he answered without hesitation.  “In the first place you will relieve me of much trouble and responsibility, and the Individual will not be so often called away from his manifold and important household duties.  In the second place I shall have a most agreeable and intelligent companion with whom I can talk as long as I like.  In the third place I shall undoubtedly satisfy my curiosity.”

“In what respect, if you please?”

“I shall discover the secret of your wonderful interest in Israel Kafka’s welfare.  I always like to follow the workings of a brain essentially different from my own, philanthropic, of course.  How could it be anything else?  Philanthropy deals with a class of ideas wholly unfamiliar to me.  I shall learn much in your society.”