g the law--if you have the nerve?"

Is there no such thing as right and wrong? Don't you know in your heart
that this would be wrong--very wrong?

"I've been fed up with that kind of talk all my life. What other people
think about such things is their affair. I believe in deciding for
myself and doing as I like.

"The main thing I've got to consider is my chance of getting away with
it and what is liable to happen if I don't. I am sure I can make a good
enough imitation of my father's signature to get the check cashed at one
of the stores the family deals with. If it goes to the bank along with
other checks and the amount is not large, there is small chance of any
attention being paid to it. If it once gets into father's account at the
bank, as likely as not it will never be discovered. And even if it
should be, at some future date, no father would bring a charge against
his own son. So the worst that can happen is another one of those family
scenes which I have gone through before.

"The most important thing of all is that I need the money--I've got to
have it--and this is the least objectionable way I can think of to get
it."

This is presumably the process of reasoning the young men in question
went through. In each case the immediate consequence of the act was
apparently harmless and quite satisfactory to them. They got the money
they wanted, the checks were taken in at the bank, time passed and no
one knew the difference.

The indirect and remote consequences of this kind of conduct, however,
came eventually. They nearly always do. The forgeries in each case were
repeated--why shouldn't they be? And the day finally arrived when they
were brought to light. In each of the cases the suffering and
heart-break of the mothers and fathers was pitiful and beyond recovery
in this world. That was one of the indirect consequences.

One of the young men, whom I had known as a bright, attractive
collegian, was sent to prison, eventually, in spite of all his family
could do. Another died in an institution for incurables. All forfeited
their birthright of home, family, decent associations and ended up in
degradation and wreckage.

That was one of the remote consequences.

Let us take a more usual example, much less extreme--the young man who
steps on the throttle of his automobile because he feels like going
fast.

As far as his own experience is concerned, where is the reason for him
to deny his impulse?

If a tra