“It’s not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr.”
He looked at me shrewdly. “Think it over, boy. No use being hasty.” He handed me a card. “Any time you change your mind come and see me or send me a telegram.”
I watched him out of the store. The Grand Army must be annoying the mighty Confederacy. Tyss ought to know about the agent’s interest. And I knew I would be unable to tell him.
“Suppose,” I asked Enfandin the next day, “suppose one were placed in the position of being an involuntary assistant in a—to a....” I was at a loss for words to describe the situation without being incriminatingly specific. I could not tell him about Tolliburr and my clear duty to let Tyss know of the colonel’s espionage without revealing Tyss’s connection with the Grand Army and thus uncovering my deceit in not warning Enfandin earlier. Whatever I said or failed to say, I was somehow culpable.
He waited patiently while I groped, trying to formulate a question which was no longer a question. “You can’t do evil that good may come of it,” I burst out at last.
“Quite so. And then?”
“Well.... That might mean eventually giving up all action entirely, since we can never be sure even the most innocent act may not have bad consequences.”
He nodded. “It might. The Manichaeans thought it did; they believed good and evil balanced and man was created in the image of Satan. But certainly there is a vast difference between this inhuman dogma and refusing to do consciously wicked deeds.”
“Maybe,” I said dubiously.
He looked at me speculatively. “A man is drowning in the river. I have a rope. If I throw him the rope he may not only climb to safety but take it from me and use it to garrote some honest citizen. Shall I therefore let him drown because I must not do good lest evil come of it?”