ndments mean," sez he.

It was an awful curious little man, an' I kind o' straightened up an'
give him a searchin' look: "I've met a heap like you," sez I. "Some
folks think that preachers is paid to make the world better, but they
ain't. They're paid so that when a feller's conscience hurts him he can
just lay all the sins of the whole world on the preachers."

"They deserve 'em," sez the little man. "What does it mean to steal?"

"Why, any fool knows what stealin' is," sez I. "It's takin' something
that don't belong to you."

"How can you tell what does belong to you," he sez, leanin' forward as
if he was makin' a point.

I looked at him an' saw that he really thought he was talkin' sense, so
I sez: "You go talk to some one else. I'm too sleepy an' I'm too blame
sore to bother with such nonsense."

"It ain't nonsense," sez he. "I'm an edicated man, an' I been studyin'
life ever since I been born. My father was a preacher across the water,
an' I got arrested for stealin' a bottle of whiskey when I wasn't
nothin' but a boy. The whole family was disgraced on account of me, an'
my father told 'em to go ahead an' give it to me hard. Now I stole that
whiskey on a dare, an' I stole it from a good church member; but all
the rest of my life I been stretchin' that there commandment until I
tell you the whole human race is one set o' thieves."

Well, I was purty sleepy, but the little old man had an eye in him like
a headlight, an' he just made you listen to him. "The' ain't no sense
in your slingin' mud that way," sez I. "The' 's lots of men 'at
wouldn't steal, if they had a chance."

"If I ruin my constitution through depravity, is it stealin'?" sez he.

"No," sez I, "it's darn foolishness."

"It is stealin'," sez he, "just as much as if I help to waste natural
products what can't be replaced--stealin' from the children of the next
generation, an' all the followin' generations."

"What rights have they got?" I sez, losin' my patience. "They ain't
even born yet."

"Did you ever see a baby?" sez he.

"Yes," I sez, "I bet I've seen a dozen of 'em."

"Well," sez he, "was they polite? Did they beg for what they wanted?
Did they have any doubt but that they'd be plenty of everything to go
around?"

"Not them what I saw," sez I. "They'd give one little coo, to see if
any one was handy, an' then they'd holler an' yell an' scold an' fuss
until they got what they wanted."

"Do you suppose if they didn't have any righ