And so while the members of the parliament in Watts McHurdie's shop read and were disturbed at the strange twist of events, the whole world was puzzled with them, and in unison with Jacob Dolan, half the world spoke, "I see no difference in poisoning breakfast foods and poisoning wells, and it's no odds to me whether a man pinches a few ounces out of my flour sack, or steals my chickens." And the other half of the world was replying with Colonel Culpepper, "Oh, well, Jake, now that's all right for talk; but in the realms of high finance men are often forced to be their own judges of right and wrong, and circumstances that we do not appreciate, cannot understand, in point of fact, nor comprehend, if I may say so, intervene, and make what seems wrong in small transactions, trivial matters and pinch-penny business, seem right in the high paths of commerce." The general was too deeply interested in reading what purported to be his son's testimony before Commissioner Smith, to break into the discussion at this point, so Dolan answered, "From which I take it that you think that Johnnie down at the mill keeps a private God in his private car." The colonel was silent for a time; he read a few lines and looked into space a moment, and then replied in a gentle husky voice: "Jake, what do we know about it? The more I think how every man differs from his neighbour, and all our sins are the result of individual weakness at the end of lonely struggles with lonely temptations--the more I think maybe there is something in what you say, and that not only John but each of us--each of us under this shining sun, sir--keeps his private God." "You'll have to break that news gently to the Pope," returned Dolan. "I'll not try it. Right's right, Mart Culpepper, and wrong's wrong for me and for Johnnie Barclay, white, black, brown, or yellow--'tis the same." "There's nothing in your theory, Mart," cut in the general, folding his paper across his knee; "not a thing in the world. We're all parts of a whole, and the only way this is an individual problem at all--this working out of the race's destiny--is that the whole can't improve so long as the parts don't grow. So long as we all are like John Barclay save in John's courage to do wrong, laws won't help us much, and putting John in jail won't do so very much--though it may scare the cowards until John's kind of crime grows unpopular. But what we must have is individual--"