"You prove your ability, Mr. Morton, by drawing a vast conclusion from
a small and ill-defined premise. I don't recall making any such
statement."

"Pardon me, you are at disadvantage now. I ask for no better premise
than your own action; for you are one, I think, who would do only what
you thought right."

"A palpable hit. I'm glad I showed you mercy. Still it does not follow
that because I read a newspaper, all newspapers are good Sunday
reading. Indeed, there is much in this paper that is not good reading
for Monday or any other day."

"Ah!" I exclaimed, looking grave, "then why do you read it?"

"I have not. A newspaper is like the world of which it is a brief
record--full of good and evil. In either case, if one does not like
the evil, it can be left alone."

"Which do you think predominates in that paper?"

"Oh, the good, in the main. There is an abundance of evil, too, but it
is rather in the frank and undisguised record of the evil in the
world. It does not seem to have got into the paper's blood and
poisoned its whole life. It is easily skipped if one is so inclined.
There are some journals in which the evil cannot be skipped. From the
leading editorial to the obscurest advertisement, one stumbles on it
everywhere. They are like certain regions in the South, in which there
is no escape from the snakes and malaria. Now there are low places in