“Although in my youth I had a great deal to say about the surprising respectability of my family, they were really a very unpromising crowd. While none of them ever walked between the minister and the sheriff to a hanging, or was ever locked up for theft, none of them amounted to anything, and I am glad that they are all in ignorance as to where I am, for I never want to see any of them again. I am bad enough, but they are worse. My favorite uncle, the Duke, was a barber in the town where I was raised; his sister, the Duchess, was a disagreeable old maid who existed entirely on her respectability, for she spent her time in visiting those of her relatives who had houses, and in boasting of it (she was the laziest woman I ever knew in my life, by the way); my grandfather, the Count, was a market gardener, and there was an Earl on my mother’s side who was a fireman; and the heir to all his possessions rode horses at races because he was old and little. The others I have forgotten, and I am sincerely grateful to my memory for the favor.” It was very late, and as I did not relish the thought of remaining alone in the room with the coffin, I was sincerely obliged to my companion for his company, and was pleased when I saw that he had more to say:-- “Naturally I am a great liar.” I tried to look astonished, as he intended I should, but I am afraid I did not. “I did not know until a few years ago that honesty was the best policy, and as a boy and young man I never told the truth, even when it would do as well as a falsehood, but of late years I deal in nothing but facts, truths, and principles. I go even farther than that: I rake up the past to find truths that might be kept secret, for I now enjoy honesty as I formerly enjoyed dishonesty. The world is full of men like me in the particular that they tell the truth for no other reason than that experience has taught them it is best to do it. I know hundreds of men naturally thieves who are scrupulously honest for the same reason, and there is a great deal in the saying that honesty is the best policy. It cost me several years of disagreeable experience to make the discovery, but you may depend upon it that honesty is the best policy.” I had never heard any one accuse Mr. Biggs of having reformed except Mr. Biggs himself, for it was generally understood that he was thoroughly unscrupulous in everything, and the people would no more trust him for money than they would take his word. “If I lived on a lonely island, without a neighbor, I would do right in everything, for the reason that even under such circumstances honesty would be the best policy. It pays better to be honest to yourself, in fact, than to your neighbor. It’s a pity these facts are not more generally known and accepted, for we should then have a very different world; I am ashamed of it as it is.”