Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/230

200 self-gratulation; now they rubbed their hands, and joked like runaway-schoolboys, at their escape.

By degrees their thoughts turned from the past to the future; and "Tell me, my dear fellow," said Augustus, "what you intend to do. I trust I have long ago convinced you, that it is no sin 'to serve our friends' and to 'be true to our party;' and therefore, I suppose, you will decide upon taking to the road!"

"It is very odd," answered Paul, "that I should have any scruples left after your lectures on the subject; but I own to you frankly, that, somehow or other, I have doubts whether thieving be really the honestest profession I could follow."

"Listen to me, Paul," answered Augustus; and his reply is not unworthy of notice. "All crime and all excellence depend upon a good choice of words.—I see you look puzzled, I will explain. If you take money from the public, and say you have robbed, you have indubitably committed a great crime; but if you do the same and say you have been relieving the necessities of the poor, you have done an excellent action: if, in afterwards dividing this