power?"

This was, of course, a poser, but it did not embarrass me in the least. I
was committed, and without a moment's thought I proceeded with an imaginary
explanation which he afterward declared had been altogether satisfying. The
story was too good to keep--maybe conscience pricked--and in a chummy talk
later along I laughingly confessed.

"You should tell that in your dinner speech tonight," he said. "If you tell
it as you have just told it to me, it will make a hit," and I did.

I give it as the opinion of a long life of experience and observation that
the newspaper press, whatever its delinquencies, is not a common liar, but
the most habitual of truth tellers. It is growing on its editorial page I
fear a little vapid and colorless. But there is a general and ever-present
purpose to print the facts and give the public the opportunity to reach its
own conclusions.

There are liars and liars, lying and lying. It is, with a single exception,
the most universal and venial of human frailties. We have at least three
kinds of lying and species, or types, of liars--first, the common,
ordinary, everyday liar, who lies without rime or reason, rule or compass,
aim, intent or interest, in whose mind the partition between truth and
falsehood has fallen down; then the sensational, imaginative liar, who has
a tale to tell; and, finally, the mean, malicious liar, who would injure
his neighbor.

This last is, indeed, but rare. Human nature is at its base amicable,
because if nothing hinders it wants to please. All of us, however, are more
or less its unconscious victims.