Cinderella - And Other Stories by Richard Harding Davis
page 65 of 144 (45%)
page 65 of 144 (45%)
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lot, Mr. Aram," he said, gravely.
There was a long pause. The poet rocked slowly up and down in his rocking-chair, and looked at his hands, which he rubbed over one another as though they were cold. Then he raised his head and cleared his throat. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "you have made out your case." "Yes," said the editor, regretfully, "we have made out our case." He could not help but wish that the fellow had stuck to his original denial. It was too easy a victory. "I don't say, mind you," went on Mr. Aram, "that I ever took anybody's verses and sent them to a paper as my own, but I ask you, as one gentleman talking to another, and inquiring for information, what is there wrong in doing it? I say, _if_ I had done it, which I don't admit I ever did, where's the harm?" "Where's the harm?" cried the two visitors in chorus. "Obtaining money under false pretences," said the editor, "is the harm you do the publishers, and robbing another man of the work of his brain and what credit belongs to him is the harm you do him, and telling a lie is the least harm done. Such a contemptible foolish lie, too, that you might have known would surely find you out in spite of the trouble you took to--" "I never asked you for any money," interrupted Mr. Aram, quietly. |
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