The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-06
TELLING THE TRUTH.

ut is a serious question just how far
we are justified in telling the truth"
observed the lawyer in the club circle,
when his opinion was asked. AS you
say, there are persons who viii do so
when lie would answer just as Well.
1 myself have, 1 own, a lamentable
tendency in that direction.
often in the exercise of my profess
sion, when justice, morality, expedien-
cy and common-sense suggest the
plain, straight path of falsehood 1 am
tempted to tell the truth.
Il generally have the strength to re-
sist it, but in social life, where the OBJ
legations to smooth over like dlff1cultles
seem less urgent, often fall.
When 1 have gone somewhere, and
have been bored to death, 1 find my
self unable to assure my host or hos
tess that 1 have had perfectly de-
"Of course. 1 don't actually say that
/ am glad to get away, but If you place
a strict construction upon the omission
am just as much to blame as If
told an unblushing truth.
ITO give you an instance of this, we
my wife and I-were at breakfast at
a friends house not long ago. Some
Strawberries were served, and the
cream had got pretty well on the way
to cheese
Il noticed after had taken the first
spoonful that my wife was eating hers
with difficulty She's a heroic little
soul in the face of social duty. 1 pass
ed mine.
Then. the coffee was poured. Our
hostess said to my wife: -~ss '~
3 -. Ethel, you take sugar and--cream,
don't your
's'Just sugar. please says the lady.
"tWhy, 1 thought you took creams?
Just once in a great whileA
"tYou surely did all the time when
you were with us last summer
II think did them Ethel said, very
sweetly and coolly. L just take a
fancy sometimes for it. and then III
use it perhaps for a month at a time.
Il wasn't paying any particular at
tention. So when it came to me said;
It'll take milk; your creams sour
IT didn't think there was anything
particularly wrong about that until
saw that Ethel was as red as a beet
and our hostess was looking at her
with a peculiar smile.
Then realized that my guilty can
Coz had involved my wife in its conse-
quences. 1t would have been better for
ner-although her conscience would
have troubled her-to have told the
truth too"
Something very nearly as bad as
that occurred to my wife, so she was
telling me the other day. said another
man. "She is not, 1 am happy to say,
an Incorporate truth-teller, though she
has ner lapses, like everybody else.
Her mother, however, is shockingly
veracious. 1t really seems impossible
for her to lie under any circumstances.
Her daughters have reasoned with
her, and her husband, who has suffered
keenly from her unhappy propensity,
mas done his best, but she is simply in
corrigible. She was with US not long
ago, and she had with her my wife's
unmarried sister.
TT appears that there is some fellow
who is very much gone on the younger
lady, and he is almost impenetrable-
one of those thick-hided, persistent men
and. much as the girl mas snubbed
him, he never minds. Every time he
comes to town he calls upon her, and
she finds it hard to get rid of him.
We'll. the two girls-my wife and her
sfster-were chatting comforta bly, together
and their mother was lying down in the
ring at the bell and a mans voice called
up the tube to know if Miss Gertie
No says the sister. in a hoarse whis-
per to my wife. Tell him I'm out and
not expected for month. Don't let him
MY wife didn't know the man. or the
circumstance. SO il happened; but she
the tube to the desired effect, but she
couldn't call very loudly for fear her
were concentrating themselves that the
man had gone he knocked at the door.
My wife opened it.
I beg your pardon he said. but did
you tell me Miss Payson was out? could
not hear distinctly
For moment my wife was so scared
and say that Miss Payson was in, and
that he had misunderstood. She stuck to
mas
her mother was stirring. Then she said:
:. Mrs; Payson is out too really do
I'm sorry 1 missed them said the
caller You must be Mrs Cosgrove- I'm
Mr.. Glsley. You may have heard of me.
of YOU Gi and wanted to ms meet You You eA>
That was pretty nearly a stumper