"
"Doing as you would be done by! O dear!" said the friend; "you
certainly don't mean to bring that law down into the actual life of
the world?"
"It would be a happier world for all of us if this law were
universally obeyed."
"That may be. But, where all are selfish, how is it possible to act
from an unselfish principle?"
"Do you approve of stealing?" said Claire, with some abruptness.
"Of course not," was the half-indignant answer.
"I need not have asked the question, for I now remember to have seen
the fact noticed in one of our papers, that an unfaithful domestic in
your family had been handed over to the police."
"True. She was a thief. We found in her trunk a number of valuable
articles that she had stolen from us."
"And you did right. You owed this summary justice as well to the
purloiner as to the public. Now, there are many ways of stealing,
besides this direct mode. If I deprive you of your property with
design, I steal from you. Isn't that clear?"
"Certainly."
"And I am, to use plain words, a thief. Well, now take this easily
to be understood case. I have a lot of goods to sell, and you wish to
purchase them. In the trade I manage to get from you, through direct
misrepresentation, or in a tacit advantage of your ignorance, more
than the goods are really worth.
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