"Now you're going too far. Look at
Tarrant. He'd burn you over a slow fire for this if he could. Speak for
yourself at any rate, not for us."
"I do," answered the other bitterly. "I speak for myself. I know what a
poor, rotten cur I am physically and mentally--not worth the bread I eat to
keep me alive. And shall I dare say that God made me?"
"But what's the end of this philosophy of despair, old chap?" asked Brady;
"what becomes of your worst of all possible planets?"
"The end? Dust and ashes. My unfortunate workman, having blundered on for
certain millions of years tinkering and patching and improving his dismal
colony, will give the thing up; and God will laugh and show him the
mistakes and then blot the essay out, as a master runs his pen through the
errors in a pupil's exercise. The earth grows cold at last, and the herds
of humanity die, and the countless ages of agony and misery are over. Yes,
the poor vermin perish to the last one; then their black tomb goes whirling
on until it shall be allowed to meet another like itself, when a new sun
shines in heaven and space is the richer by one more star."
"May God forgive you for your profanity, John Barren," said Tarrant. "That
He places in your hand such power and suffers your brain to breed the
devil's dung that fills it, is to me a mystery. May you live to learn your
errors and regret them."
He turned away and two men followed him.
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