Mr. Worthy was much concerned to hear Mr. Bragwell, after dinner, whisper to the waiter, to put less and less water into every fresh bowl of punch. This was his old way; if the time they had to sit was long, then the punch was to be weaker, as he saw no good in wasting money to make it stronger than the time required. But if time pressed, then the strength was to be increased in due proportion, as a small quantity must then intoxicate them as much in a short time as would be required of a greater quantity had the time been longer. This was one of Mr. Bragwell's nice calculations; and this was the sort of skill on which he so much valued himself.
At length the guests were properly primed for business; just in that convenient stage of intoxication which makes men warm and rash, yet keeps short of that absolute drunkenness which disqualifies for business, the auctioneer set to work. All were bidders, and, if possibly, all would have been purchasers; so happily had the feast and the punch operated. They bid on with a still increasing spirit, till they got so much above the value of the land, that Bragwell with a wink and a whisper, said: "Who would sell his land fasting? Eh! Worthy?" At length the estate was knocked down, at a price very far above its worth.
As soon as it was sold, Bragwell again said softly to Worthy, "Five from fifty and there remain forty-five. The dinner and drink won't cost me five pounds, and I have got fifty more than the land was worth. Spend a shilling to gain a pound! This is what I call practical arithmetic, Mr. Worthy."
Mr. Worthy was glad to get out of this scene; and seeing that his friend was quite sober, he resolved as they rode home, to deal plainly with him. Bragwell had found out, among his calculations, that there were some sins which could only be committed, by a prudent man, one at a time. For instance, he knew that a man could not well get rich and get drunk at the same moment; so that he used to practice one first, and the other after; but he had found out that some vices made very good company together; thus, while he had watched himself in drinking, lest he should become as unfit to sell as his guests were to buy, he had indulged, without measure, in the good dinner he had provided. Mr. Worthy, I say, seeing him able to bear reason, rebuked him for this day's proceedings with some severity. Bragwell bore his reproofs with that sort of patience which arises from an opinion of one's own wisdom, accompanied by a recent flush of prosperity. He behaved with that gay good humor, which grows out of united vanity and good fortune. "You are too squeamish, Mr. Worthy," said he, "I have done nothing discreditable. These men came with their open eyes. There is no compulsion used. They are free to bid or to let it alone. I make them welcome, and I shall not be thought a bit the worse of by them to-morrow, when they are sober. Others do it besides me, and I shall never be ashamed of any thing as long as I have custom on my side."
Worthy. I am sorry, Mr. Bragwell, to hear you support such practices by such arguments. There is not, perhaps, a more dangerous snare to the souls of men than is to be found in that word custom. It is a word invented to reconcile corruption with credit, and sin with safety. But no custom, no fashion, no combination of men, to set up a false standard can ever make a wrong action right. That a thing is often done, is so far from a proof of its being right, that it is the very reason which will set a thinking man to inquire if it be not really wrong, lest he should be following "a multitude to do evil." Right is right, though only one man in a thousand pursues it; and wrong will be forever wrong, though it be the allowed practice of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine. If this shameful custom be really common, which I can hardly believe, that is a fresh reason why a conscientious man should set his face against it. And I must go so far as to say (you will excuse me, Mr. Bragwell) that I see no great difference, in the eye of conscience, whatever there may be in the eye of the law, between your making a man first lose his reason, and then getting fifty guineas out of his pocket, because he has lost it, and your picking the fifty guineas out of his pocket, if you had met him dead drunk in his way home to-night. Nay, he who meets a man already drunk and robs him, commits but one sin; while he who makes him drunk first that he may rob him afterward, commits two.
Bragwell gravely replied: "Mr. Worthy, while I have the practice of people of credit to support me, and the law of the land to protect me, I see no reason to be ashamed of any thing I do." "Mr. Bragwell," answered Worthy, "a truly honest man is not always looking sharp about him, to see how far custom and the law will bear him out; if he be honest on principle, he will consult the law of his conscience, and if he be a Christian, he will consult the written law of God. We never deceive ourselves more than when we overreach others. You would not allow that you had robbed your neighbor for the world, yet you are not ashamed to own you have outwitted him. I have read this great truth in the works of a heathen, Mr. Bragwell, that the chief misery of man arises from his not knowing how to make right calculations."
Bragwell. Sir, the remark does not belong to me. I have not made an error of a farthing. Look at the account, sir—right to the smallest fraction.
Worthy. Sir, I am talking of final accounts; spiritual calculations; arithmetic in the long run. Now, in this, your real Christian is the only true calculator; he has found out that we shall be richer in the end, by denying, than by indulging ourselves. He knows that when the balance comes to be struck, when profit and loss shall be summed up, and the final account adjusted, that whatever ease, prosperity, and delight we had in this world, yet if we have lost our souls in the end, we can not reckon that we have made a good bargain. We can not pretend that a few items of present pleasure make any great figure, set over against the sum total of eternal misery. So you see it is only for want of a good head at calculation that men prefer time to eternity, pleasure to holiness, earth to heaven. You see if we get our neighbor's money at the price of our own integrity; hurt his good name, but destroy our own souls; raise our outward character, but wound our inward conscience; when we come to the last reckoning, we shall find that we were only knaves in the second instance, but fools in the first. In short, we shall find that whatever other wisdom we possessed, we were utterly ignorant of the skill of true calculation.
Notwithstanding this rebuff, Mr. Bragwell got home in high spirits, for no arguments could hinder him from feeling that he had the fifty guineas in his purse.
There is to a worldly man something so irresistible in the actual possession of present, and visible, and palpable pleasure, that he considers it as a proof of his wisdom to set them in decided opposition to the invisible realities of eternity.