"Seven, counting the Chinese cook."
The Captain sighed and looked out to sea. His ship, the Papeete, lay there at anchor; but to get to her he would have to go along a narrow path between the mangroves, and this did not precisely seem advisable.
"Look, here, sir," he said after a while, "what are they squabbling about over there, anyway? Some boundary or other?"
"Less than that."
"Colonies?"
"Even less than that."
"Commercial treaties?"
"No. Only about the truth."
"What kind of truth?"
"The absolute truth. You see, every nation insists that it has the absolute truth."
"Hm," grunted the Captain. "What is it, anyway?"
"Nothing. A sort of human passion. You've heard, haven't you, that in Europe yonder, and everywhere in fact, a . . . a God, you know . . . came into the world."
"Yes, I did hear that."
"Well, that's what it's all about, don't you understand?"
"No, I don't understand, old man. If you ask me, the true God would put things right in the world.
