"Of appropriating articles that belong to others, for example."
"Yes," says she, "that is what I meant."
"Well," says I, "is there not the melancholy case of our refusing the highwayman's booty in one form and accepting it in another?"
"That I am sure we did not," says Mistress Virtue. "We did not ask him to pay our bill."
"To be sure we did not," says I, "but he paid it, none the less. Now, had we acted in that matter according to your fine ideas, we should, in the first place, have delivered that highwayman up to the King's justice; then the rape of the squire's guineas would never have been committed, and the landlord's bill would not have been paid at all. That is why one is ever so perplexed by these high principles of conduct. Why draw the line in one place and not in another? Do we not make these arbitrary distinctions and often deny ourselves all manner of things thereby, when we can least afford to do without them, and yet there is not a day that passes but what we commit offences against our codes of honour with a cheerful heart. So much depends upon the title by which an act is dignified. Persons in our degree of life refer to certain sources of their emolument as privilege and monopoly, whereas if they were enjoyed by those in a humbler sphere, who would hesitate to denounce them as robbery and fraud? Now these boxes being in our possession, and as we are quite destitute of means, is not there a hundred ways by which we can prevail upon our consciences to permit us to enjoy their contents?"
Cynthia stoutly denied this specious reasoning at the time. But after awhile, when the horses began to flag, and hunger, our ancient dogged enemy, began once more to assert himself, she was inclined to look at the matter in a rather more lenient light.
"We must incontinently perish of starvation by the way," says I, "unless these chests of Mr. Waring and his Grace, your papa, can help us. Now which course shall we adopt? And we to take the articles therein as a loan, fully intending to recompense their owners at a more fortunate season? or shall we simply take them without any reservation whatever, as lawful prizes won from the enemy in open fight?"
"I think I like the idea of the 'borrowing' best," says the scrupulous Cynthia.
"Very well, then, we will effect a loan," says I.
We could hardly venture to pull up at the door of any reputable inn in our present state. We were the beggars no longer, but a lady and gentleman of quality. Persons who drive about the country a pair of fine horses and a chariot of the first fashion are compelled to support their responsibilities. That is ever the eternal drawback. I, clad in the meanest of garments, divested of my coat and hat, would have been entirely at ease in my former mean character, and should have passed unnoticed in it. But once I drove to the inn door in the Duke's chaise, attired in that fashion, I should be the talk of the place. Therefore I brought the horses to a halt, in a secluded part of the road, and proceeded to investigate the nature of the articles in the chests, in order to see if they could afford an embellishment to our present unfortunate garb. We hoped to discover some money, too, for we had not so much as a penny between us.