Mr. Worthy was glad to get out of this scene; and seeing that his friend was quite sober, he resolved as they rode home, to deal plainly with him. Bragwell had found out, among his calculations, that there were some sins which could only be committed, by a prudent man, one at a time. For instance, he knew that a man could not well get rich and get drunk at the same moment; so that he used to practice one first, and the other after; but he had found out that some vices made very good company together; thus, while he had watched himself in drinking, lest he should become as unfit to sell as his guests were to buy, he had indulged, without measure, in the good dinner he had provided. Mr. Worthy, I say, seeing him able to bear reason, rebuked him for this day's proceedings with some severity. Bragwell bore his reproofs with that sort of patience which arises from an opinion of one's own wisdom, accompanied by a recent flush of prosperity. He behaved with that gay good humor, which grows out of united vanity and good fortune. "You are too squeamish, Mr. Worthy," said he, "I have done nothing discreditable. These men came with their open eyes. There is no compulsion used. They are free to bid or to let it alone. I make them welcome, and I shall not be thought a bit the worse of by them to-morrow, when they are sober. Others do it besides me, and I shall never be ashamed of any thing as long as I have custom on my side." _Worthy._ I am sorry, Mr. Bragwell, to hear you support such practices by such arguments. There is not, perhaps, a more dangerous snare to the souls of men than is to be found in that word CUSTOM. It is a word invented to reconcile corruption with credit, and sin with safety. But no custom, no fashion, no combination of men, to set up a false standard can ever make a wrong action right. That a thing is often done, is so far from a proof of its being right, that it is the very reason which will set a thinking man to inquire if it be not really wrong, lest he should be following "a multitude to do evil." Right is right, though only one man in a thousand pursues it; and wrong will be forever wrong, though it be the allowed practice of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine. If this shameful custom be really common, which I can hardly believe, that is a fresh reason why a conscientious man should set his face against it. And I must go so far as to say (you will excuse me, Mr. Bragwell) that I see no great difference, in the eye of conscience, whatever there may be in the eye of the law, between your making a man first lose his reason, and then getting fifty guineas out of his pocket, _because_ he has lost it, and your picking the fifty guineas out of his pocket, if you had met him dead drunk in his way home to-night. Nay, he who meets a man already drunk and robs him, commits but one sin; while he who makes him drunk first that he may rob him afterward, commits two.