"It's 'cause the' 's so many people here," sez I; "that's easy enough."
"It's 'cause the preachers ain't got the nerve to explain what the commandments mean," sez he.
It was an awful curious little man, an' I kind o' straightened up an' give him a searchin' look: "I've met a heap like you," sez I. "Some folks think that preachers is paid to make the world better, but they ain't. They're paid so that when a feller's conscience hurts him he can just lay all the sins of the whole world on the preachers."
"They deserve 'em," sez the little man. "What does it mean to steal?"
"Why, any fool knows what stealin' is," sez I. "It's takin' something that don't belong to you."
"How can you tell what does belong to you," he sez, leanin' forward as if he was makin' a point.
I looked at him an' saw that he really thought he was talkin' sense, so I sez: "You go talk to some one else. I'm too sleepy an' I'm too blame sore to bother with such nonsense."
"It ain't nonsense," sez he. "I'm an edicated man, an' I been studyin' life ever since I been born. My father was a preacher across the water, an' I got arrested for stealin' a bottle of whiskey when I wasn't nothin' but a boy. The whole family was disgraced on account of me, an' my father told 'em to go ahead an' give it to me hard. Now I stole that whiskey on a dare, an' I stole it from a good church member; but all the rest of my life I been stretchin' that there commandment until I tell you the whole human race is one set o' thieves."
Well, I was purty sleepy, but the little old man had an eye in him like a headlight, an' he just made you listen to him. "The' ain't no sense in your slingin' mud that way," sez I. "The' 's lots of men 'at wouldn't steal, if they had a chance."
"If I ruin my constitution through depravity, is it stealin'?" sez he.