his train, so that it should be held
on the grade safely. And he, and the engine alone, went on up that
grade, and met that flying mass of freight. He saved two hundred
people's lives. Yet that man, two years before, had tried to burn alive
forty of his fellow-men. Was that man good or bad?"

"Really, chum, if you ask it as a conundrum, I give it up. But there are
thoroughly and wholly good things in this world, and one of them is this
stuffing. Would it be possible for a fellow to have a second help?"

Peter smiled. "Jenifer always makes the portions according to what is to
follow, and I don't believe he'll think you had better. Jenifer, can Mr.
D'Alloi have some more stuffing?"

"Yissah," said Jenifer, grinning the true darkey grin, "if de gentmun
want't sell his ap'tite foh a mess ob potash."

"Never mind," said Watts. "I'm not a dyspeptic, and so don't need
potash. But you might wrap the rest up in a piece of newspaper, and I'll
take it home."

"Peter, you must have met a great many men in politics whom you knew to
be dishonest?" said Mrs. D'Alloi.

"No. I have known few men whom I could call dishonest. But then I make a
great distinction between the doer of a dishonest act and a dishonest
man."

"That is what the English call 'a fine-spun' distinction, I think," said
madame.

"I hope not. A dishonest man I hold to be one who works steadily and
persistently with bad means and motives. But there are many men whose
lives tell far more for good than for evil in the whole, yet who are not
above doing wrong at moments or under certain circumstances. This man
will lie under given conditions of temptations. Another will bribe, if
the inducement is strong enough. A third will merely trick. Almost every
man has a weak spot somewhere. Yet why let this one weakness--a partial
moral obliquity or imperfection--make us cast him aside as useless and
evil. As soon say that man physically is spoiled, because he is
near-sighted, lame or stupid. If we had our choice between a new,
bright, keen tool, or a worn, dull one, of poor material, we should not
hesitate which to use. But if we only have the latter, how foolish to
refuse to employ it as we may, because we know there are in the world a
few better ones."

"Is not condoning a man's sins, by failing to blame him, direct
encouragement to them?" said Mrs. D'Alloi.

"One need not condone the sin. My rule has been, in politics, or
elsewhere, to fight dishonesty wherever I f