dings with some
severity. Bragwell bore his reproofs with that sort of patience
which arises from an opinion of one's own wisdom, accompanied by a
recent flush of prosperity. He behaved with that gay good humor,
which grows out of united vanity and good fortune. "You are too
squeamish, Mr. Worthy," said he, "I have done nothing discreditable.
These men came with their open eyes. There is no compulsion used.
They are free to bid or to let it alone. I make them welcome, and I
shall not be thought a bit the worse of by them to-morrow, when they
are sober. Others do it besides me, and I shall never be ashamed of
any thing as long as I have custom on my side."

_Worthy._ I am sorry, Mr. Bragwell, to hear you support such
practices by such arguments. There is not, perhaps, a more dangerous
snare to the souls of men than is to be found in that word CUSTOM.
It is a word invented to reconcile corruption with credit, and sin
with safety. But no custom, no fashion, no combination of men, to
set up a false standard can ever make a wrong action right. That a
thing is often done, is so far from a proof of its being right, that
it is the very reason which will set a thinking man to inquire if it
be not really wrong, lest he should be following "a multitude to do
evil." Right is right, though only one man in a thousand pursues it;
and wrong will be forever wrong, though it be the allowed practice
of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine. If this shameful custom
be really common, which I can hardly believe, that is a fresh
reason why a conscientious man should set his face against it. And I
must go so far as to say (you will excuse me, Mr. Bragwell) that I
see no great difference, in the eye of conscience, whatever there
may be in the eye of the law, between your making a man first lose
his reason, and then getting fifty guineas out of his pocket,
_because_ he has lost it, and your picking the fifty guineas out of
his pocket, if you had met him dead drunk in his way home to-night.
Nay, he who meets a man already drunk and robs him, commits but one
sin; while he who makes him drunk first that he may rob him
afterward, commits two.

Bragwell gravely replied: "Mr. Worthy, while I have the practice of
people of credit to support me, and the law of the land to protect
me, I see no reason to be ashamed of any thing I do." "Mr.
Bragwell," answered Worthy, "a truly honest man is not always
looking sharp about him, to see how far custom and