Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/84

 "Why not? I'd say it was easier to be honest than dishonest, Gordon."

"I think it is for you, old man. You're about the—well, the squarest chap I know." Peter colored faintly with embarrassment. "But you don't get up against any problems. If you were in business, Pete, I'll bet you'd go bankrupt in a month." "I don't see it," said Peter stoutly. "Business isn't different from anything else. A chap acts square in anything, doesn't he?"

"Some, perhaps. No, he doesn't—not if it's business. The trouble isn't with the man, it's with business itself. Business seems to me to be just another name for dishonesty. There are men who wouldn't think of double-crossing a friend in the ordinary relations of life, who'd shoot themselves rather than cheat at cards, who'd be as square as a block with a woman, Pete. Put that same man in business and he'd cheat the eye-tooth out of his dearest friend!"

"Piffle!"

"By gad, no, it isn't piffle! It's the lamentable truth, old man. Why, hang it, I'll bet there's graft in even a Bible society! Only they don't