om of which had accumulated some
reddish-brown dust from Mason & Welsby's Admiralty and Divorce Reports
upon the adjacent shelf.

"He made the point," answered Tutt, helping himself to a piece of toast,
"that crime was--if I may be permitted to use the figure--part of the
onward urge of humanity toward a new and perhaps better social order; a
natural impulse to rebel against existing abuses; and he made the claim
that though an unsuccessful revolutionary was of course regarded as a
criminal, on the other hand, if successful he at once became a patriot,
a hero, a statesman or a saint."

"A very dangerous general doctrine, I should say," remarked Miss Wiggin.
"I should think it all depended on what sort of laws he was rebelling
against. I don't see how a murderer could ever be regarded as assisting
in the onward urge toward sweetness and light, exactly."

"Wouldn't it depend somewhat on whom you were murdering?" inquired Mr.
Tutt, finally succeeding in his attempt to make a damp stogy continue
in a state of combustion. "If you murdered a tyrant wouldn't you be
contributing toward progress?"

"No," retorted Miss Wiggin, "you wouldn't; and you know it. In certain
cases where the laws are manifestly unjust, antiquated or perhaps do not
really represent the moral sense of the community their violation may
occasionally call attention to their absurdity, like the famous blue
laws of Connecticut, for example; but as the laws as a whole do
crystallize the general opinion of what is right and desirable in
matters of conduct a movement toward progress would be exhibited not by
breaking laws but by making laws."

"But," argued Mr. Tutt, abandoning his stogy, "isn't the making of a new
law the same thing as changing an old law? And isn't changing a law
essentially the same thing as breaking it?"

"It isn't," replied Miss Wiggin tartly. "For the obvious and simple
reason that the legislators who change the laws have the right to do so,
while the man who breaks them has not."

"All the same," admitted Tutt, slightly wavering, "I see what Mr. Tutt
means."

"Oh, I see what he means!" sniffed Miss Wiggin. "I was only combating
what he said!"

"But the making of laws does not demonstrate progress," perversely
insisted Mr. Tutt. "The more statutes you pass the more it indicates
that you need 'em. An ideal community would have no laws at all."

"There's a thought!" interjected Tutt. "And there wouldn't be any
lawyers either!"