“I book for a future discussion, ‘What _is_ Truth?’ meanwhile, the previous question is of more immediate interest.” “Now, it seems to me,” returned the clergyman, “that the cause of the present deadlock is that both parties miss altogether the full import of that previous question. _Can_ you make a proper use, Mrs. Richards, of anything not lawfully yours? Wait a minute, doctor,” with a glance of mirthful menace, as that personage drew a long breath of satisfaction, “I want to ask _you_ whether you can rightfully make over to another who has no better claim to it than yourself, money which he will certainly make a bad use of, begging your forgiveness, Mrs. Richards, but I know whereof I speak.” “I dare say,” she replied sadly. “Again we wander,” said the doctor. “The question is not of Frank’s peccadilloes, but of his father’s money.” “Is it his father’s?” “Morally? no, by all the gods!” “And not legally, for it stands in your wife’s name.” “To whom, then, does it morally belong?” asked Alice. “Ask your husband!” said Mr. Clare. “Why, I suppose Mr. Bellamy would say to the nation,” returned the doctor, “but I certainly don’t propose to hand it over to Congress. Besides, I don’t care a hang for the nation, as such. I’m an individualist; and every coin of that accursed hoard is stained with the blood of individuals.” “Again you miss the point, my dear sir. If the money be not yours, you have no concern with it further than to hand it over to its lawful owners.” “Who are either dead or wish they were, and could not possibly be traced in either case.” “That certainly complicates matters,” said Mr. Clare, laughing; “but, as some of them were negroes, as I understand it, you might donate a part at least to the Commission”— “I’ll be hanged if I do! Besides, they never owned a penny in their lives, poor devils! The money was made at their expense, but was not theirs.” “Dr. Richards, I fear you’re a humbug. Don’t you see that you have the feeling of property in this money? You speak of it as not yours, yet you’ll give it to this one, and be hanged if you give it to that”— “I know!” cried Alice suddenly, her perceptions quickened, perhaps, by the feeling that her husband was coming off second best from the encounter of wits; “I know. They are going to sell more stock at ‘Prices’ next month; we could invest this money in Freddy’s name, and the income from it would give him a support if anything happened to us, Fred.” Mr. Clare waited for Dr. Richards to express his approval. “Well, I don’t know that you could do better,” he said somewhat reluctantly. “It would be as near to returning the principal to its lawful owners as we are at all likely to come, and Freddy’s due proportion of the national wealth would amount to considerably more than the interest at five per cent, I suppose.”