MR. Y. It must be because you are afraid of being found out.
MR. X. Perhaps that, too. But don't you think that a man of my intelligence should be able to manage it so that it wouldn't be found out? I always go alone to dig out there on the hills—without witnesses. Would it be remarkable to put a little something in one's pockets?
MR. Y. Yes, but disposing of it, they say, is the dangerous part.
MR. X. Humph, I should of course have the whole thing smelted, and then I should have it cast into ducats—full weight, of course—
MR. Y. Of course!
MR. X. That goes without saying. If I wanted to make counterfeit money—well, it wouldn't be necessary to dig the gold first. [Pause.] It's remarkable, nevertheless, that if some one were to do what I can't bring myself to do, I should acquit him. But I should not be able to acquit myself. I should be able to put up a brilliant defense for the thief; prove that this gold was res nullius, or no one's, and that it got into the earth before there were any land rights; that even now it belongs to no one but the first comer, as the owner had never accounted it part of his property, and so on.
MR. Y. And you would not be able to do this if—h'm!—the thief had stolen through need, but rather as an instance of a collector's mania, of scientific interest, of the ambition to make a discovery,—isn't that so?
MR. X. You mean that I wouldn't be able to acquit him if he had stolen through need? No, that is the only instance the law does not pardon. That is simple theft, that is!
MR. Y. And that you would not pardon?
MR. X. H'm! Pardon! No, I could hardly pardon what the law does not, and I must confess that it would be hard for me to accuse a collector for taking an antique that he did not have in his collection, which he had dug up on some one else's property.