hop girls!" Kelson added.

"All women--rich as well as poor!" Hamar went on. "Lying is woman's
birthright. She lies about her age, her looks, her clothes--everything.
With a lie she sends callers away, and when she is in the mood,
entertains them with lies. Women are born liars, but they are not the
only liars. In these days of keen competition every one lies--every
editor, publisher, undertaker, piano-tuner, dustman--they couldn't live
if they didn't. Moreover lying is natural to us all. Every child lies
as soon as it can speak; and education merely teaches him to lie the
more effectually. Lying comes just as natural as sweating--"

"Or kissing," Kelson interrupted.

"Or any of the other so-called vices," Hamar continued. "So we can
manage that all right. As to cheating--having nothing to cheat
with--according to instructions we've got to keep in with each other,
so present company is excepted--we must pass over that. Now--how about
thieving!"

"Never done any yet, so can't say," Curtis exclaimed.

"Nor I either," Kelson put in rather hurriedly.

"Well, I didn't suppose you had!" Hamar laughed; "though, after all,
more than half the world does thieve--all employers steal labour from
their employes, all tradesmen steal a profit--the wholesale man from
the middleman--the middleman from the retailer. Every Government
thieves. Look at England--righteous England! At one time or another
she has stolen land in every part of the world. But theft is an ugly
word. When statesmen steal it's called diplomacy, when the rich steal
it's called kleptomania or business, and it's only when the poor steal
that stealing is termed theft. We who have every excuse--we who are
starving--will be content with--that is to say--we will only
take--just enough to keep us alive--a few lumps of sugar, a handful of
raisins, or a loaf of bread. How about that?"

"I might manage that," Curtis said. "I might--but I don't want to get
caught."

"And you, Matt?"

"I don't mind stealing food so much," Kelson said. "In the face of so
much wealth--and waste too--it seems a bigger sin to starve than to
steal a loaf of bread."

"The lying and stealing are fixed then," Hamar laughed. "What you have
to do, too, is to make the most of every opportunity you can find of
doing people--present company excepted--bad turns."

"I don't see how--in our present condition--we can do any one much
harm," Curtis remarked. "We haven't even the means to buy a tin sw