Alexander, Sam, and Edmund. Requesting permission to speak.
Of course, said Thomas. What is it?
Well sir, said Alexander, some of the boys have been thinking.
Yes? What is it they have been thinking?
Well sir, said Alexahe men have a melancholy.
Oh my, said Thomas. Which?
Well sir, I would say it is the pip. Less a sulk than a sourness.
What are the symptoms?
Headache, vertigo, singing in the ears, much waking, fixed eyes, red eyes, high color, hard belly, short and sharp belgs, dry brains, and pain in the left side. Not each man has every symptom. Most have two. Some have three. One has four.
Me, Edmund said.
Did I not double the rum ration? Thomas asked.
You did, sir, you did, and we are grateful. Yet --
Well what is the issue?
Well sir, I was ing to that. The issue, Alexander said, is ethical.
Oh my. Local eneral?
Well sir, we feel maybe we ought not to be doin what we are doin. We feel its a sizing, you might say.
A what?
A darkening of the truth.
What truth and how darkened?
Well sir, Alexander said, look at it this way. It is this: The grand Fathers bein all hauly-mauly by the likes of us over bump and bumbust and all raggletailed and his poor bumleg all hurty and his grand aura all tarnagled and June bein a bad month for erprises and a bad month for old enterprises accordin to the starcharts and like that, we that is to say us the men have a faint intustition that maybe the best is not to e in terms of the grand Father the moon-hahe eye-in-the-sky the old meister the bey window the bit chammer the gaekwarder the ing the khando kid the zam the shotgun of kyotowing the principal stadtholder the voivode the top wali, this Being, I say, being a Being of the highest anthropotrictraterest, as well as the one who keeps the popping from the fine green fields and the like and the like, is maybe being abruised and lese-majestied by us paloots over maers of hard cheese days in and out but even a galoot has a brain to wonder with and what we wonder is to what end? for urpose? are we right? are we wrong? are we culpable? to what degree? will there be a trial after? official inquiry? court of nation? white paper? have you told him? if you have told him what have you told him? how much of the blame if there is blame is ours? ten pert? twenty pert? in excess of that figure? and searg our hearts as we do each m and evening and also at midday after lund after the dishes have been washed, we wonder whither? what for? the sce be coggled? are we doing the right thing? and with all the love and respect we have for you Thomas-the-Tall-Standing and for your wisdom which we do not deny for a moment and for your heart -- To put it in the short form, we are dubious.
An occasion. Thomas rising.
Your questions are good ones, he said. Your is well founded. I I thi respond by relating ae. You are familiar I take it with the time Martin Luther attempted to sway Franz Joseph Haydn to his cause. He called Haydn oelephone and said, "Joe, youre the best. I want you to do a piece for us." And Haydn just said, "No way, Marty. No way."
You have got the turies all wrong and the telephone should not be in there and anyway I do not get the point, said Edmund.
You see! Thomas exclaimed. There it is! Things are not simple. Error is alossible, even with the best iions in the world. People make mistakes. Things are not dht. Right t