I trembled at the bare thought of such a thing. Thus far I had kept myself honest before God and man. But then I did not mean to steal this sum. I would even put a memorandum in the drawer, to the effect that I was indebted to the bank for this amount. What harm? Who would be wronged by it? I intended to pay every penny of it back in a few days, as soon as I could visit my aunt. It was a little irregular, but even the cashier had done a similar thing within my knowledge. No one would ever know anything about it, and certainly no one would ever lose anything.
Why should I be tortured for the want of four hundred dollars, when thousands were lying idle in my drawer? Why should I humiliate myself before Tom Flynn, when, without wronging any body, I could pay my debt, make him happy, and be happy myself? I was certain that I could return the four hundred dollars. My aunt would certainly let me have it. My uncle even would lend it to me. I had property enough in my house to pay it three times over.
Why should I linger here at the brink of the precipice over which I had determined to leap? I thought, as hundreds of others have thought, in the same trying situation. I comforted myself, as they have done, with fallacious reasoning. I persuaded myself that, as I intended to pay back what I borrowed, and convinced myself that I had the means to do so, it was not dishonest for me to take the money. I assured myself it was only a slight irregularity that I meditated; that, even in the sight of God, it was only a trivial error of form. The Good Father judges us more by our intentions than by our acts.
Perhaps I had prepared myself for this step, as every young man does who permits himself to run in debt, who allows himself to be continually subjected to a fearful temptation by the pressure of obligations needlessly incurred. Certainly my experience in furnishing my house had prepared me for this temptation. It came when I least expected it. It was but a trivial form that I purposed to break through; not the law of honesty, of moral rectitude.
I took four one hundred dollar bills from my drawer, and slipped them into my vest-pocket. Everybody in the bank was minding his own business. No one took any notice of me. I think I must have been as pale as death when I did the deed, trivial as I chose to regard it. I wrote the amount in figures, on a slip of paper, and put it under the bills in the drawer. I convinced myself that this was a suitable acknowledgement of what I had done, which fully relieved me of every intention of doing anything wrong. It is astonishing how weak and silly we are when we are trying to conceal our own errors from our own eyes. The contents of my drawer were transferred to the vault, and I prepared to go home.
“Tom, I haven’t had time to get that money yet, but I will meet you at three o’clock, at the reading-room,” I remarked to my friend, as easily as I could.
“O, don’t put yourself out, Paley,” said the generous fellow. “If it is not convenient, let it go.”
“No, but it shall be paid. The money is all ready, only I have not had time to go for it.”
“I hope the matter has not given you any trouble, Paley,” he added; and perhaps I had not been entirely successful in concealing the anxiety which disturbed me.