tand
this. Excuse me, my dear friend, but it strikes me that in going into
the philosophy of the subject, you go somewhat out of your depth."

"So said the incautious wader out to the ocean; but the ocean replied:
'It is just the other way, my wet friend,' and drowned him."

"That, Charlie, is a fable about as unjust to the ocean, as some of
AEsop's are to the animals. The ocean is a magnanimous element, and would
scorn to assassinate a poor fellow, let alone taunting him in the act.
But I don't understand what you say about enmity couched in friendship,
and ruin in relief."

"I will illustrate, Frank, The needy man is a train slipped off the
rail. He who loans him money on interest is the one who, by way of
accommodation, helps get the train back where it belongs; but then, by
way of making all square, and a little more, telegraphs to an agent,
thirty miles a-head by a precipice, to throw just there, on his account,
a beam across the track. Your needy man's principle-and-interest friend
is, I say again, a friend with an enmity in reserve. No, no, my dear
friend, no interest for me. I scorn interest."

"Well, Charlie, none need you charge. Loan me without interest."

"That would be alms again."

"Alms, if the sum borrowed is returned?"

"Yes: an alms, not of the principle, but the interest."

"Well, I am in sore need, so I will not decline the alms. Seeing that it
is you, Charlie, gratefully will I accept the alms of the interest. No
humiliation between friends."

"Now, how in the refined view of friendship can you suffer yourself to
talk so, my dear Frank. It pains me. For though I am not of the sour
mind of Solomon, that, in the hour of need, a stranger is better than a
brother; yet, I entirely agree with my sublime master, who, in his Essay
on Friendship, says so nobly, that if he want a terrestrial convenience,
not to his friend celestial (or friend social and intellectual) would he
go; no: for his terrestrial convenience, to his friend terrestrial (or
humbler business-friend) he goes. Very lucidly he adds the reason:
Because, for the superior nature, which on no account can ever descend
to do good, to be annoyed with requests to do it, when the inferior
one, which by no instruction can ever rise above that capacity, stands
always inclined to it--this is unsuitable."

"Then I will not consider you as my friend celestial, but as the other."

"It racks me to come to that; but, to oblige you, I'll do it. We