The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1912-02-13

a CUSTOM Oh LneSc QmoS. All our
employees are photographed II they
run away with our funds and we have
a likeness their, capture is easier"
DO you mean. Mr.. Gregory, that you
keep rogues' gallery Of your clerks 2.
mot at all. We keep the gallery,
and it is for the individual to make a
rogue of himself"
Carleton stood looking at the gentle
man with eyes wide open. Finally he
said
Il was brought up by a father and a
mother who would have considered 1t
dangerous to me not to give me their
implicit confidence. You are treating
your fellow men as they dared not
treat me. and by doing so IL you are
1ot encouraging dishonesty you are
surely paving the way for 1t. II ac-
coded to your terms | should consider
that so far as you are concerned had
right to beat you If could This
would be the first step to my own deg
radiation. The next would be to beat
the rest Of the world if could do so
without risk to myself. / am much
obliged for your offer, but cannot ac-
cept 1t. was born at time when all
men were trusted TIL they proved un-
worthy. ] came TO my youth at q time
when my countrymen were acting upon
the highest principle Of honor In CIV
ing their lives for their fellow men
Suppose that vast army who died on
the battlefield and in the hospital
should rise from their graves and con
front you. Would they not shudder at
the standard of honor which has re-
placed the one under which they gave
up their livesf'
Mr.. Gregory listened to these words
spoken by one who had really but just
renewed his existence from that period
when the youth of the country had
lived under higher standard of honor,
standard of truest manhood, and
when he had finished said:
''The years, the centuries, are rolling
on. The standard of one age is not the
must preserve our individual honor we
must submit to that which exists about
us.
you have passed with but a single
step over forty years. You find that
the system. or. rather, the lack of sys-
tenn, of that time has been replaced by
another. The youth Of 81 would
have scorned to accept a position
wherein provisions were taken to avoid
loss by their dishonesty and to facilt
tate their capture If they betrayed q
trust. We have not now the youth Of
81. We have the youth Of the TWEEN
tieth century. Nevertheless they are
the same beings, and the latter may
maintain their self respect as well as
the former. for. after all, it is in the
man and not the system"
Doubtless you are right, Mr. Greg
ory," after some thought. "but to
transplant the youth of 81 into 1904
is failure. You might as well try
to grow oranges in the northern states.
/ thank you for the position offered
me, but shall decline it, not that /
would demean myself by accepting 1t.
for you have shown me that after all
1t is the man rather than the system,
but that / cannot bear transplanting
from the soil Of 81 to that of 1901"
That night Carleton slept on a
bench In park. or. rather. he lay
awake. thinking Of those who had been
fighting with him in the hornets nest"
Of Shiloh. Who of the company had
fallen? Who had lived and grown to
old age with the unexpired portion of
the century? Doubtless those who
were now alone had ceased to be
part of the systems in vogue during
their youth and had glided uncon-
sciously into the systems of their old
age.
One morning body was found fioat-
ing in a river and dragged ashore.
The clothing was shabby. the only
adornment being an army badge made
Of gun metal 1t was the corpse of
Carleton. He had spoken
truly when he said that be would not
bear transplanting from the middle Of
the nineteenth century TO the begin
ming Of the twentieth. He had tried
several jobs. but the sense that he was
not trusted so worked upon his feel
ings that he at last gave up every one
Of them Having been taken from an
where he breathed freely,
he decided to go where breathing was
not necessary to existence