Again he laughed. “You said that, old Top, as though I’d asked ‘What is the sun?’ It shines on you so, Steve; to ask about it is to you the acme of foolish questions; but it’s not to the man who’s brought up under the cloud. What is law? I never even looked up a dictionary definition till I got talking to some of my present friends; now here’s just what Webster says: ‘A rule of conduct established by an authority able to enforce its will.’ That’s all there is to it—a set of rules drawn up by the first men on the ground, who’ve grabbed everything in sight, and who naturally want to perpetuate and increase their possessions. Hence they fix up a lot of rules in their favor which they call law. If you come along later, and are boob enough to believe it’s best to work with them, you’re a good lawful citizen; if you carry a few ideas of your own, and mean to get ahead without asking anybody’s permission, you’re a lawbreaker.”
That peeved me; he saw it and smiled.
“I’m quoting, Steve; quoting.”
“Quoting who?”
“Oh, philosophers with any number of aliases. There’s no philosopher like a flat-worker or a good gopher man. In the first place, they’ve plenty of time to think; their hours of actual effort are short, if rather intense; and between them are periods of leisure which may become decidedly protracted, if they’re picked up. Those who complain that the ancient Greek art of dialectics is declining simply confess the constriction of their acquaintance. Socrates—so I am convinced, Steve—was a burglar who’d served about two terms when he got so good that Plato picked him up, covered his past and wrote him down. Possibly you noticed in the delicatessen the other day a friend of mine not lacking in muscular development——”
“Oh, the dyke-keeper!” I said.
“What?”
I explained.
Jerry smiled; he knew my ways. “Any time you’re overwhelmed with fear that logic languishes, Steve, start a little argument with him. Now imagine a little boy, like me in my white dress the day you picked me up, walking into hands like his for education.”
“Oh, that’s what you’re getting to!”