«Victor was a little uneasy. 'The obscure ethics of our relations to the animal kingdom,' he chuckled.
'We kill them when we feel like it,' said David crisply, 'nothing very obscure about that.'
'Ethics is not the study of what we do, my dear David, but what we ought to do,' said Victor.
'That's why it's such a waste of time, old boy,' said Nicholas cheerfully.
'Why do you think it's superior to be amoral,' Anne asked Nicholas.
'It's not a question of being superior,' he said, exposing his cavernous nostrils to Anne, 'it just springs from a desire not be a bore or a prig.'
'Everything about Nicholas is superior,' said David, 'and even if he were a bore or a prig, I'm sure he would be a superior one.'
'Thank you, David,' said Nicholas with determined complacency.
'Only in the English language,' said Victor, 'can one be a "bore", like being a lawyer or a pastry cook, making boredom into a profession --- in other languages a person is simply boring, a temporary state of affairs. The question is, I suppose, whether this points to a greater intolerance towards boring people, or an especially intense quality of boredom among the English.'
It's because you're such a bunch of boring old farts, thought Bridget.»
D.
