Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/60



spring morning not long ago when I came to my office to begin the work of the day I found, as it is quite common to do, a young man waiting to see me. He was flushed and embarrassed as he entered my private office, and he asked me if I would consider what he should tell me in the interview which was to follow as entirely confidential. He begged that whatever facts and names he might divulge to me should be held strictly between ourselves. I gave him my assurance, and he continued with his story. He was the manager of an important undergraduate enterprise which necessitated his handling during the year some thousands of dollars. One of his duties at the outset had been to make a contract for supplies for the year. A friend of his, an upper classman, had come to him in the fall and had presented a proposition by which each was to receive a bonus of one hundred dollars in cash, if the contract should go to a definite local firm. He weakly and thoughtlessly yielded, hoping to get out of it or in some way to justify his action to himself, and now the contract had been fulfilled, and his friend was urging him to collect and divide the bonus.

"I have never consciously done a dishonest thing in my life," he said to me, "and I some way can not bring myself now to profit in this irregular way. If I take the money, I shall feel myself a crook all my