The Recruit looked thoughtful and told off the days on his fingers.

‘It happened,’ returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew his right hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the pocket of his rough outer coat, ‘it happened somewhere about here as I reckon. I don’t think it can have been a mile from here.’

Students of psychology and epistemology are familiar with the axiological literature of the last forty years, and are here reminded of the great diversity of opinions on this topic.

Will they, like the fellows, judiciously bear a hand in sweeping the stable, or will they fatuously wait to be themselves swept with a besom of destruction?