“I?” asked Verbrugge, who was a pattern of temperance.
“Yes, I make you drunk every day: You forget yourself so far that Duclari tumbles over you in the fore-gallery. That he will find unpleasant, but he will immediately remember to have seen something good in you, which he did not remark before. And when I come, and I find you thus horizontal, then he will put his hand on my arm and say, ‘Oh, believe me, he is otherwise such a good, honest, nice fellow!’ ”
“I say that of Verbrugge, even when he is vertical,” said Duclari.
“Not with the same fire and persuasion. Think of it, how often one hears people say; ‘Oh, if this man would be attentive to his business, he would be somebody, but’ and then comes the story, how that he is not attentive to business, and is, therefore, nobody. I believe that I know the reason of this. Of those that are dead we always hear good qualities which we never before perceived. This is because they are in nobody’s way. All men are more or less concurrents; we should like to place everybody else completely under us, and to have all things under us. Politeness, even self-interest, prevents the confession of this, for very soon nobody would believe us, even if we asserted something true. A subterfuge is sought for, and look how we do it. When you, Duclari, say, ‘Lieutenant Slobkous is a good soldier, to be sure he is a good soldier,
O
