"Well, I didn't suppose you had!" Hamar laughed; "though, after all, more than half the world does thieve--all employers steal labour from their employés, all tradesmen steal a profit--the wholesale man from the middleman--the middleman from the retailer. Every Government thieves. Look at England--righteous England! At one time or another she has stolen land in every part of the world. But theft is an ugly word. When statesmen steal it's called diplomacy, when the rich steal it's called kleptomania or business, and it's only when the poor steal that stealing is termed theft. We who have every excuse--we who are starving--will be content with--that is to say--we will only take--just enough to keep us alive--a few lumps of sugar, a handful of raisins, or a loaf of bread. How about that?" "I might manage that," Curtis said. "I might--but I don't want to get caught." "And you, Matt?" "I don't mind stealing food so much," Kelson said. "In the face of so much wealth--and waste too--it seems a bigger sin to starve than to steal a loaf of bread." "The lying and stealing are fixed then," Hamar laughed. "What you have to do, too, is to make the most of every opportunity you can find of doing people--present company excepted--bad turns." "I don't see how--in our present condition--we can do any one much harm," Curtis remarked. "We haven't even the means to buy a tin sword, let alone a bomb or pistol. If we wish them ill, perhaps, that will do instead." "Possibly--but don't be such an ass as to wish any one any good!" Hamar said. "Do your best to carry out the injunctions I have given you, and we will meet here, this day week, to discuss the tests." CHAPTER IV THE TESTS Seven days later, Hamar again knocked at Curtis's and Kelson's door and walked in. A faint sigh of relief escaped him. "I see we are all right so far," he said. "I wondered whether I should find you both flown, or lying stretched in the icy hands of death. Have you experimented?" "We have," Curtis said. "We've done our best. In what way, we prefer not to say." "Perhaps there is no need," Hamar replied, eyeing the mantelshelf which bore ample testimony to a full larder, and glancing at Curtis's feet which were encased in a pair of new and very shiny boots. (A handsome overcoat that was hanging on the door also attracted his attention; but that he had seen before, and concluded that it had been there on the occasion of his last visit.) "But you had better dry up now, Ed," he continued somewhat caustically, "or there'll be no chance of forming the Sorcery Society; it will be dissolved before it's started. There's no need to ask if you've tried to carry out instructions as to thoughts, I see it--in your faces. I could never have believed one experimental week in badness would have made such a difference to your looks." "You told us to try hard!" Kelson murmured, "and naturally we did. I reckon you've done the same by your expression. I should hardly have known you."