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. "No," sez I, "it's darn foolishness." "It is stealin'," sez he, "just as much as if I help to waste natural products what can't be replaced--stealin' from the children of the next generation, an' all the followin' generations." "What rights have they got?" I sez, losin' my patience. "They ain't even born yet." "Did you ever see a baby?" sez he. "Yes," I sez, "I bet I've seen a dozen of 'em." "Well," sez he, "was they polite? Did they beg for what they wanted? Did they have any doubt but that they'd be plenty of everything to go around?" "Not them what I saw," sez I. "They'd give one little coo, to see if any one was handy, an' then they'd holler an' yell an' scold an' fuss until they got what they wanted." "Do you suppose if they didn't have any rights they'd have the nerve to carry on that way?" sez he. "Rights!" sez I. "They didn't have to have rights--they had mothers." Well, that set him back a good ways, an' by the time he had thought up some new stuff I was asleep; but he shook me awake an' sez, "Of course the child's mother will do all she can; but supposin' she ain't got what the child wants--how'll she explain it to him?" "She won't bother explainin' nothin' to a baby," sez I. "She'll just send the old man out to get it." He looked sort o' disgusted like, as if he wasn't used to arguin' with a man what could handle logic an' make points. "You're just like the rest," sez he. "What I mean is, that every man who has ever been on earth is just sort of an overseer for them what is yet to come. We have the right to use everything we want in the right way, but we haven't any right to waste it or destroy it, or hog it up so that all can't enjoy it. Why, when you start to savin' an' draw in what ought to be circulatin', you steal from them what haven't had the chance 'at you've had. It's wicked to be thrifty."