et the knife for
them? They set out to strip me of the last penny I had, and they had
every advantage, despotic powers, with complete access to all my private
papers. If the robbers overlooked something that I had, a bagatelle I
needed for the days of my adversity, was it my business to pluck them by
the sleeve and turn traitor to myself? Why, the law itself gave me what
they passed over. I was declared a bankrupt. Don't you know what that
means? It means that the courts assumed responsibility for my affairs,
paid off my creditors, and, as a small compensation for having robbed
me, wiped the slate clean and declared me free of all claims. And this
was twenty-five years ago. My dear boy! Read the Bankruptcy Act. Ask a
lawyer, any lawyer--"

"Let us not speak of lawyers--now," interrupted Queed, stirring in his
chair. "Let their opinion wait as a last alternative, which, I earnestly
hope, need never be used at all. I am not bringing up this point to you
now as a legal question, but as a moral one."

"Ah! You do not find that the morals provided by the law are good enough
for you, then?"

"If your reading of the law is correct--of which I am not so certain as
you are, I fear--it appears that they are not. But--"

"It is my misfortune," interrupted the old man, his hand tightening on
the table-edge, "that your sympathies are not with me in the matter.
Mistaken sentiment, youthful Quixotism, lead you to take an absurdly
distorted view of what--"

"No, I'm afraid not. You see, when stripped of all unnecessary language,
the repulsive fact is just this: we are living here on money that was
unlawfully abstracted from the Weyland estate. No matter what the law
may say, we know that this money morally belongs to its original owners.
Now I ask you--"

"Let me put it another way. I can show you exactly where your
misapprehension is--"

Queed stopped him short by a gesture. "My mind is so clear on this point
that discussion only wastes our time."

The young man's burst of exultation was all but stillborn; already
despair plucked chilly at his heart-strings. For the first time the
depth of his feeling broke through into his voice: "Say, if you like
that I am unreasonable, ignorant, unfair. Put it all down to besotted
prejudice.... Can't you restore this money because I ask it? Won't you
do it as a favor to me?"

Surface's face became agitated. "I believe there is nothing else in the
world--that I wouldn't do for you--a tho