ough to propose to be--"

"Of course I should act under your orders," I said; "but at least you
might be sure that I would not commit you to any--to any--" I paused
for a word.

"Act of oppression," he said, with a smile--"piece of cruelty,
exaction--there are half-a-dozen words--"

"Sir--" I cried.

"Stop, Phil, and let us understand each other. I hope I have always been
a just man. I do my duty on my side, and I expect it from others. It is
your benevolence that is cruel. I have calculated anxiously how much
credit it is safe to allow; but I will allow no man, or woman either, to
go beyond what he or she can make up. My law is fixed. Now you
understand. My agents, as you call them, originate nothing; they execute
only what I decide--"

"But then no circumstances are taken into account,--no bad luck, no evil
chances, no loss unexpected."

"There are no evil chances," he said; "there is no bad luck; they reap as
they sow. No, I don't go among them to be cheated by their stories, and
spend quite unnecessary emotion in sympathizing with them. You will find
it much better for you that I don't. I deal with them on a general rule,
made, I assure you, not without a great deal of thought."

"And must it always be so?" I said. "Is there no way of ameliorating or
bringing in a better state of things?"

"It seems not," he said; "we don't get 'no forrarder' in that
direction so far as I can see." And then he turned the conversation to
general matters.

I retired to my room greatly discouraged that night. In former ages--or
so one is led to suppose--and in the lower primitive classes who still
linger near the primeval type, action of any kind was, and is, easier
than amid the complication of our higher civilization. A bad man is a
distinct entity, against whom you know more or less what steps to take. A
tyrant, an oppressor, a bad landlord, a man who lets miserable tenements
at a rack-rent (to come down to particulars), and exposes his wretched
tenants to all those abominations of which we have heard so much--well!
he is more or less a satisfactory opponent. There he is, and there is
nothing to be said for him--down with him! and let there be an end of his
wickedness. But when, on the contrary, you have before you a good man, a
just man, who has considered deeply a question which you allow to be full
of difficulty; who regrets, but cannot, being human, avert the miseries
which to some unhappy individuals follow from the