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"That's newspaperese," yawns Beauvayse, his supple brown hands knitted at the back of his sleek golden head. "Goes with 'the tented field' and casus belli: cherchez la femme and cui bono?" "She's got the lingo at her finger-ends and in her blood, or we wouldn't be cherchaying now," says Bingo dolorously. "I asked her if she was particularly keen on gettin' killed...." "Shouldn't have done that.
And I I am an atom, a creature of chance, thrown out of the infinite to flash like a shooting star for a moment across a blackened firmament and then in the infinite to expire. Cui bono? Why should I care how I live my life, since in a twinkling it will all be as if it had never been? And if Cato and Domitius and Lentulus Crus have their way with me, what matter?
Then the Chinese Commissioner and Hun Jap Lama addressed a request to the foreigner group to send some one to Narabanchi, in order to try to resolve the controversy there and to persuade Domojiroff to recognize the treaty and not permit the "great insult of violation" of a covenant between the two great peoples. Our group asked me once more to accomplish this mission pro bono publico.
The philosophical and poetical yield to the practical, when "cui bono?" is the lest question which challenges all comers. This change, if it be an actual one, may bring its losses as well as its gains.
In vain have our utilitarians cried, "Qui bono?" God has planted within man the spirit of lordship and domination; and, true to that spirit, he will never rest until Nature shall have yielded up to him her last secret, and his restless foot shall have trodden the wildest and farthest spot of earth. Then, and not till then, will he stand crowned "Lord of Creation."
But the point is that it happened to be the bit of work put into my hands, and at least I did my best. What more can any of us say? Again I ask: How about the "Cui Bono" argument? In this same year I remember another curious incident. I was staying in London during the season, and some girl friends were very anxious that I should meet a lady whom they knew intimately and wished me to know also.
As to her making faces at us through the window, I did not care sufficiently about the matter to inquire whether she did or not, because, if she got out of the ropes, it was easy enough to get on the chair and make faces. "Of course the cui bono remains. The professors make money by it; and Miss Cook can make at most, only a little mild and scarcely enviable notoriety.
If you weary of it here, promise me, swear to me.... "The Sheik had understood. He took a ring from his finger and slipped it onto mine. "'Sidi Casimir, comrade, he affirmed. 'You come find us. Take Sidi Ahmed's ring and show it. Everybody at Ahaggar comrades. Bono Ahaggar, bono. "When I came out of the Gare de Lyon, I had the feeling of having perpetrated an excellent joke."
It is that of making many confidantes. Here comes a very serious cui bono. Undoubtedly there is a momentary satisfaction in telling one's woes and sorrows to an interested listener. When the auditor is a friend, and a trusted friend, whose sympathy is genuine and whose discretion is vast, there is a comfort beyond description in unburdening one's soul. But there is a line to be drawn even here.
Ever since the last issue of clean sheets, one or two whole-souled fellows have magnanimously abjured these luxuries pro bono publico. Spartan-like they have lain in blankets, and saved their sheets in their pristine cleanliness wherewithal to cover the Christmas table.
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