"
"Never mind," said Watts. "I'm not a dyspeptic, and so don't need
potash. But you might wrap the rest up in a piece of newspaper, and I'll
take it home."
"Peter, you must have met a great many men in politics whom you knew to
be dishonest?" said Mrs. D'Alloi.
"No. I have known few men whom I could call dishonest. But then I make a
great distinction between the doer of a dishonest act and a dishonest
man."
"That is what the English call 'a fine-spun' distinction, I think," said
madame.
"I hope not. A dishonest man I hold to be one who works steadily and
persistently with bad means and motives. But there are many men whose
lives tell far more for good than for evil in the whole, yet who are not
above doing wrong at moments or under certain circumstances. This man
will lie under given conditions Of temptations. Another will bribe, if
the inducement is strong enough. A third will merely trick. Almost every
man has a weak spot somewhere. Yet why let this one weakness--a partial
moral obliquity or imperfection--make us cast him aside as useless and
evil.
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