"No, of course not. I'm doing it for the wages it pays."
"Which is as much as to say that you would break any law if you were paid enough."
"I never saw such a fellow as you are for putting things in an unpleasant way," retorted the young mate, a little testily. "Of course there are plenty of laws I couldn't be hired to break. I wouldn't steal, for instance, even if I were starving, nor commit a murder for all the money in the world. But I'd like to know what's the harm in running a cargo like ours? A few Chinamen more or less will never be noticed in a big place like the United States. Besides, I think the law that says they sha'n't come in is an unjust one, anyway. We haven't any more right to keep Chinamen out of a free country than we have to keep out Italians or anybody else."
"So you claim to be wiser than the men who make our laws, do you?" asked Alaric.
Without answering this question, Bonny continued: "As for running in a few pounds of dope, we don't rob anybody by doing that."
"How about robbing the government?"
"Oh, that don't count. What's a few dollars more or less to a government as rich as ours?"
"Which is saying that while you wouldn't steal from any one person, you don't consider it wicked to steal from sixty millions of people. Also, that it is perfectly right to rob a government because it is rich. Wouldn't it be just as right to rob Mr. Vanderbilt or Mr. Astor, or even my—I mean any other millionaire? They are rich, and wouldn't feel the loss."
"I never looked at it in that way," replied Bonny, thoughtfully.
"I thought not," rejoined Alaric. "And there are some other points about this business that I don't believe you ever looked at, either. Did you ever stop to think that every Chinaman you help over the line at once sets to work to throw one of your own countrymen out of a job, and so robs him of his living?"