"My trouble--I did not mean to mention it; 't is an old matter--in part.

You know, Mr.Frowenfeld, there is a kind of tree not dreamed of in botany, that lets fall its fruit every day in the year--you know?
We call it--with reverence--'our dead father's mistakes.' I have had to eat much of that fruit; a man who has to do that must expect to have now and then a little fever." "I have heard," replied Frowenfeld, "that some of the titles under which your relatives hold their lands are found to be of the kind which the State's authorities are pronouncing worthless.

I hope this is not the case." "I wish they had never been put into my custody," said M.Grandissime.
Some new thought moved him to draw his chair closer.
"Mr.Frowenfeld, those two ladies whom you went to see the other evening--" His listener started a little: "Yes." "Did they ever tell you their history ?" "No, sir; but I have heard it." "And you think they have been deeply wronged, eh?
Come, Mr.Frowenfeld, take right hold of the acacia-bush." M.Grandissime did not smile.
Frowenfeld winced.

"I think they have." "And you think restitution should be made them, no doubt, eh ?" "I do." "At any cost ?" The questioner showed a faint, unpleasant smile, that stirred something like opposition in the breast of the apothecary.
"Yes," he answered.
The next question had a tincture even of fierceness: "You think it right to sink fifty or a hundred people into poverty to lift one or two out ?" "Mr.Grandissime," said Frowenfeld, slowly, "you bade me study this community." "I adv--yes; what is it you find ?" "I find--it may be the same with other communities, I suppose it is, more or less--that just upon the culmination of the moral issue it turns and asks the question which is behind it, instead of the question which is before it." "And what is the question before me ?" "I know it only in the abstract." "Well ?" The apothecary looked distressed.
"You should not make me say it," he objected.
"Nevertheless," said the Creole, "I take that liberty." "Well, then," said Frowenfeld, "the question behind is Expediency and the question in front, Divine Justice.

You are asking yourself--" He checked himself.
"Which I ought to regard," said M.Grandissime, quickly.