"Official courtesies," the pathetic dream-ideal of Don Juste Lopez, is not far removed from Charles Gould's own crusade for "the commonest decencies"; they express the same priority in the forms of social organization over the means. Charles Gould having been awakened, however, we see Don Juste as absurd, stripped of both outward and inward dignity, his "convinced" (i.e., idealistic) voice compared to an insect. In his monotonous worship of "accomplished facts" we see that he is merely appeasing the dictator of the day, and that by extension parliamentary forms (and common decencies) can only exist by the sufferance of brute power.