Obtaining money under false pretences?
Well, it is.

But what's the difference at bottom between all this honourable crowd of directors, fashionable physicians, employers of labour, ferry-builders, military men, country priests, and consuls themselves perhaps, who take money and give no value for it, and poor devils who do the same at far greater risk?
Necessity makes the law.

If those gentlemen were in my position, do you think that they would hesitate ?" Shelton's face remaining doubtful, Ferrand went on instantly: "You're right; they would, from fear, not principle.

One must be hard pressed before committing these indelicacies.

Look deep enough, and you will see what indelicate things are daily done by the respectable for not half so good a reason as the want of meals." Shelton also took a cigarette--his own income was derived from property for which he gave no value in labour.
"I can give you an instance," said Ferrand, "of what can be done by resolution.