interest on fifty dollars would have broken down Moale."

"There is no telling. It is the last pound, you know, that breaks
the camel's back. Five years have passed since his day of
misfortune. Fifteen dollars for interest are therefore due. I have
my doubts if he could have paid you sixty-five dollars now. Indeed,
I am sure he could not. And the thought of that as a new debt, for
which he had received no benefit whatever, would, it is more than
probable, have produced a discouraged state of mind, and made him
resolve not to pay you any thing at all."

"But that wouldn't have been honest," said the merchant.

"Perhaps not, strictly speaking. To be dishonest is from a set
purpose to defraud; to take from another what belongs to him; or to
withhold from another, when ability exists to pay, what is justly
his due. You would hardly have placed Moale in either of these
positions, if, from the pressure of the circumstances surrounding
him as a poor man and in debt, he had failed to be as active,
industrious, and prudent as he would otherwise have been. We are all
apt to require too much of the poor debtor, and to have too little
sympathy with him. Let the hope of improving your own
condition--which is the mainspring of all your business
operations--be taken away, and instead, let there be only the desire
to pay off old debts through great labour and self-denial, that must
continue for years, and imagine how differently you would think and
feel from what you do now. Nay, more; let the debt be owed to those
who are worth their thousands and tens of a thousands, and who are
in the enjoyment of every luxury and comfort they could desire,
while you go on paying them what you owe, by over-exertion and the