“That was ruffianly conduct, of which progress would have for ever to be ashamed,” said the banker indignantly. “They bayed and yelped like a pack of hounds. At their first volley I was as embarrassed and confused as a modest girl would be at the impertinence of some young scapegrace. Fierce rage then hurried me to the platform, and my words have never done better service, for they vindicated civilization.”
“I cannot conceive how a trifle could thus exasperate you.”
Greifmann stood still and looked at his companion in astonishment.
“A trifle!” echoed he reproachfully. “Do you call a piece of wanton impudence, a ruffianly outrage against several hundreds of men entitled to respect, a trifle?”
“I do, compared with other crimes that you have suffered to pass unheeded and uncensured,” answered Gerlach. “You had not an indignant word for the unutterable meanness of those three leaders, who were immoral and unprincipled enough to invest a notorious villain with office and honors. Nor did you show any exasperation at the brutal terrorism practised by men of power in this town over their weak and unfortunate dependents.”
“Take my advice, and be on your guard against erroneous and narrow-minded judgments. The leaders merely had a view to their own ends, but they in no manner sinned against propriety. The raising a man of Shund's abilities to the office of mayor is an act of prudence—by no means an offence against humanity.”
“Yet it was an outrage to moral sentiment,” opposed Seraphin.
“See here, Gerlach, moral sentiment is a very elastic sort of thing. Sentiment goes for nothing in practical life, and such is the character of life in our century.”
“Well, then, the mere sense of propriety is not worth a whit more.”
“I ask your pardon! Propriety belongs to the realm of actualities or of practical experiences, and not to the shadowland of sentiment. Propriety is the rule that regulates the intercourse of men, it is therefore a necessity, nothing else will serve as a substitute for it, and it must continue to be so regarded as long as a difference is recognized between rational man and the irrational brute.”