"You seem to think honesty as simple as
Blind Man's Buff" said I. "It's a more delicate affair
than that: delicate as any art."
"O well, at that rate!" he exclaimed, with complete
relief; "that's casuistry."
"I am perfectly certain of one thing; that what you
propose is dishonest," I returned.
"Well, say no more about it; that's settled," he
replied.
Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried. But the
trouble was that such differences continued to recur,
until we began to regard each other with alarm. If
there were one thing Pinkerton valued himself upon, it
was his honesty; if there were one thing he clung to,
it was my good opinion; and when both were involved, as
was the case in these commercial cruces, the man was on
the rack. My own position, if you consider how much I
owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder, and
that yet I lived and fattened on these questionable
operations, was perhaps equally distressing. If I had
been more sterling or more combative, things might have
gone extremely far. But, in truth, I was just base
enough to profit by what was not forced on my
attention, rather than seek scenes; Pinkerton quite
cunning enough to avail himself of my weakness; and it
was a relief to both when he began to involve his
proceedings in a decent mystery.
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