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416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
"Guy briefly fell asleep. Then Ivor said, 'Guy, what would you do if you were challenged to a duel?'
'Laugh.'
'Yes, of course.'
'What made you think of that now?'
'I was thinking about honour. It's a thing that changes, doesn't it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years ago we would have had to fight if challenged. Now we'd laugh. There must have been a time a hundred years or so ago when it was rather an awkward question.'
'Yes. Moral theologians were never able to stop duelling--it took democracy to do that.'
"The single-handed attack on a fortified position by a British major-general, attended in one account by a small boy, in another by a midget, had no precedent in Clausewitz."
"I don't know about the others. With me I think, perhaps, it's because I associate it with love. And I don't love any more."
After the absolution he said: 'Are you a foreigner?'
'Yes.'
'Can you spare a few cigarettes?'
It would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world.