, now
am I?"

"Not in the least."

"I'm willing to consider every one, and I think I do. But there are
limits, by Jove! Now, really?"

"The minute we recognize limits it's our duty not to go beyond them.
It's thus far and no farther--for the man who knows the stretch of his
tether, at any rate. The trouble with Peter is that his tether is
elastic. It'll spin out as far as he sees the need to go. For the rest
of us there are limits, as you say; but about him there's
something--something you might call limitless."

Ashley rounded sharply. "You mean he's so big that no one can be
bigger."

"Not exactly. I mean that very few of us _need_ to be as big as that.
It's all very well for him; but most of us have to keep within the
measure of our own capacity."

"And sit down under him, while he looms up into God knows where?"

"Well, wouldn't that be your idea?"

"Can't say that it is. My idea is that when I take my rights and keep
them, I'm as big as any one."

"Quite so; as big as any one--who takes his rights and keeps them.
That's very true."

Ashley stopped, one hand behind him, the other supporting him as he
leaned on the desk. "And that's what I propose to do," he said,
aggressively.

"It's a very high ideal."

"I propose to accept the status quo without asking any more questions."

"I should think that would be a very good plan. A wise man--one of the
wisest--wrote, apropos of well-disposed people who were seeking a
standard of conduct: 'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that
thing which he alloweth.' I should think you'd have every reason for
that kind of self-approval."

"Do you mean that, sir? or are you--trying it on?"

"I'm certainly not trying it on. The man who takes his rights and keeps
them can be amply justified. If there's a counsel of perfection that
goes beyond that standard--well, it isn't given to all men to receive
it."

"Then you think it isn't given to me. You'd put me down as a good sort
of chap who comes in second best."

"What makes you think I should do that?"

"Because--because--hang it all! If I let this fellow keep ahead of
me--why, I _should_ come in second best."

"You say _keep_ ahead of me. Do you think he's ahead of you now?"

Ashley straightened himself. He looked uncomfortable. "He's got a pull,
by Jove! He made that journey to France--and cracked me up to the
Marquise--and wheedled her round--when all the while he must have known
that he was hammering