“I?” ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. “Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as possible!”
“As you say, sir,” wheezed the captain. “Come along, boys! Take him over to court and arraign him!”
“Yes, do!” urged Mrs. Witherspoon. “And arraign him as hard as you can; for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!”
“Leave him to me, ma'am!” adjured the captain “Will you have your butler act as complainant sir?” he asked.
“Why-yes-Bibby will do whatever is proper,” agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. “It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?”
“Oh, no!” answered the captain. “Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose we had better make the charge burglary, sir?”
“I suppose so,” replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely.
“Get on, boys,” ordered the captain. “Good evening, sir. Good evening, ma'am. Step lively, you!”
The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. Then the third footman brought the belated tea.
“What a frightful thing to have happen!” grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. “You don't take cream, do you?”
“No, thanks,” he answered. “I find too much cream hard to digest. I have to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room.”
“He was in the bed,” said Mrs. Witherspoon.
“In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt,” said Tutt thoughtfully, as he dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, “Oscar Wilde says, 'There is no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'“
The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured owl.
“That's plain enough,” he replied. “The most highly cultivated people are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!”
“You don't say, now!” ejaculated Tutt. “How do you make that out?”
Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the bundle in the dusty old cigar box.
“Crime,” he announced, “is the violation of the will of the majority as expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, crimes-they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows.”
“That's all right,” answered Tutt. “But how about progress?”
“Why, that is simple,” replied his partner. “The man who refuses to bow to habit, tradition, law-who thinks for himself and acts for himself, who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and stakes his life and liberty upon them-that man is either a statesman, a prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified.”
Tutt looked interested.
“Well, now,” he returned, helping himself from the box, “I never thought of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say that crime is progress?”
“If successful it is,” answered Mr. Tutt. “But the moment it is successful it ceases to be crime.”
“I get you,” nodded Tutt. “Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor.”
“And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair,” remarked Mr. Tutt laconically.
“To use another illustration,” exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, “the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a crime to refuse to share one's property with others.”
“In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive,” smiled his partner.
Tutt robbed his forehead.
“Looking at it that way, you know,” said he, “makes it seem as if criminals were rather to be admired.”
“Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were,” answered Mr. Tutt. “All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in the sense that they were law-breakers.”
“And Martin Luther,” suggested Tutt.
“And Garibaldi,” added Mr. Tutt.
“And George Washington-maybe?” hazarded the junior partner.
Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders.
“You press the analogy a long way, but-in a sense every successful revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal-as every rebel is and perforce must be,” he replied.
“So,” said Tutt, “if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker-it's too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon or a Willy Hohenzollern.”
“You have the idea,” replied Mr. Tutt. “Crime is unsuccessful defiance of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and progress.”
Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully.
“That sounds pretty good,” he admitted, “but”-and he shook his head-“there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are 'agin the law' as it is, but-I also see the hole in your argument, which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth.”
“You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth,” retorted Mr. Tutt. “It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company or takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir”-Mr. Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury-“the man who wears a red necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?”