CONSCIENCE. Is it _slander_, or is it _because I tell you the truth_, that your temper is so deeply ruffled under my remonstrances? Suppose I were to hold my peace, while your hands are becoming more and more deeply crimsoned with this bloody traffic. What would you say to me, when you come to meet that poor boy who just went out, and his drunken father, and broken-hearted mother, at the bar of God? Would you thank your conscience for having let you alone while there was space left for repentance? RETAILER. Ah, had honest trader ever _such_ a conscience to deal with before? Always just so uncompromising--always talking about the "golden rule"--always insisting upon a moral standard which nobody can live up to--always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide, in every glass of whiskey, though it were a mile off. The truth is, you are not fit to live in this world at all. Acting in conformity with your more than puritanical rules, would starve any man and his family to death. CONSCIENCE. Well, here comes another customer--see the carbuncles! Will you fill his bottle with wrath, to be poured out without mixture, by and by, upon your own head? Do you not know that his pious wife is extremely ill, and suffering for want of every comfort, in their miserable cabin? RETAILER. No, Mr. E----, go home and take care of your family. I am determined to harbor no more drunkards here. CONSCIENCE. You mean to make a distinction then, do you, between harboring those who are already ruined, and helping to destroy such as are now respectable members of society. You will not hereafter tolerate a single _drunkard_ on your premises; but-- RETAILER. Ah, I see what you are aiming at; and really, it is too much for any honest man, and still more for any Christian to bear. You know it is a long time since I have pretended to answer half your captious questions. There's no use in it. It only leads on to others still more impertinent and puzzling. If I am the hundredth part of that factor of Satan which you would make me, I ought to be dealt with, and cast out of the church at once; and why don't my good brethren see to it? CONSCIENCE. That's a hard question, which they, perhaps, better know how to answer than I do. RETAILER. But have you forgotten, my good Conscience, that in retailing spirit, I am under the immediate eye and sanction of the laws. Mine is no contraband traffic, as you very well know. I hold a license from the rulers and fathers of the state, and have paid my money for it into the public treasury. Why do they continue to grant and sell licenses, if it is wrong for me to sell rum?