“Peter, you’ve taken a lump of sugar on the sly!”
“Word of honour, by God, I haven’t! Look in my pockets, by God!”
“Don’t swear, and don’t lie. I counted them before we set out, on purpose.... There were eighteen and now there are seventeen.”
“By God!!”
“Don’t swear. It is shameful to lie. I will forgive you everything, only tell me straight out the truth. But a lie I can never forgive. Only cowards lie. One who is capable of lying is capable of murdering, of stealing, of betraying his king and his country....”
So he ran on and ran on. I had heard such utterances from him in my earliest childhood, when he was my governess, afterwards when he was my class teacher, and again when he wrote in the newspaper.
I interrupted.
“You find fault with your son for lying, and yet you yourself have, in his presence, told a whopping lie. You said this seat was occupied by a gentleman. Where is that gentleman? Show him to me.”
The pedagogue went purple, and his eyes dilated.
“I beg you, don’t interfere with people who don’t interfere with you. Mind your own business. How scandalous! Conductor, please warn this passenger that he will not be allowed to interfere with other people in the railway carriage. Please take measures, or I’ll report the matter to the gendarme, and write in the complaint book.”