"As King Hal said: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,'"
commented Mr. Tutt.

"Awful vision!" ejaculated Miss Wiggin. "Luckily for us, that day has
not yet dawned. However, Mr. Tutt's argument is blatantly fallacious. Of
course, the making of new laws indicates an impulse toward social
betterment--and therefore toward progress."

"It seems to me," ventured Tutt, "that this conversation is more than
usually theoretical--not to say specious! The fact of the matter is that
the law is a part of our civilization and the state of the law marks the
stage of our development--more or less."

Mr. Tutt smiled sardonically.

"You have enunciated two great truths," said he. "First, that it is a
'part'; and second, 'more or less.' The law is a very small part of our
protection against what is harmful to us. It is only one of our
sanctions of conduct, and a very crude one at that. Did you ever stop to
think that compared with religion the efficacy of the law was almost
_nil_? The law deals with conduct, but only at a certain point. We are
apt to find fault with it because it makes what appear to us to be
arbitrary and unreasonable distinctions. That in large measure is
because law is only supplementary."

"How do you mean--supplementary?" queried Tutt.

"Why," answered his partner, "as James C. Carter pointed out,
ninety-nine per cent of all law is unwritten. What keeps most people
straight is not criminal statutes but their own sense of decency,
conscience or whatever you may choose to call it. Doubtless you recall
the famous saying of Diogenes Laertius: 'There is a written and an
unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our
cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the
unwritten law.' I see that, of course you do! As I was saying only the
other day, infractions of good taste and of manners, civil wrongs, sins,
crimes--are in essence one and the same, differing only in degree. Thus
the man who goes out to dinner without a collar violates the laws of
social usage; if he takes all his clothes off and walks the streets he
commits a crime. In a measure it simply depends on how many clothes he
has on what grade of offense he commits. From that point of view the man
who is not a gentleman is in a sense a criminal. But the law can't make
a man a gentleman."

"I should say not!" murmured Miss Wiggin.

"Well," continued Mr. Tutt, "we have various ways of dealing with these
o