the customer being also aware that he knows it, and adapts his charges to the fact, it is a case of ‘Greek meet Greek,’ and, even if the customer deserves reprobation, the tradesman certainly deserves no compassion.  But this is a case outside the range of honest dealing altogether, and must be regulated by other sentiments and other laws than those which prevail in ordinary commerce.  There is another well-known, and to many men only too familiar, exception to the ordinary relation of debtor and creditor.  A friend ‘borrows’ money of you, though it is understood on both sides that he will have no opportunity of repaying it, and that it is virtually a gift.  Here, as the creditor does not expect any repayment, and the debtor knows that he does not, there is no act of dishonesty, but the debtor, by asking for a loan and not a gift, evades the obligation of gratitude and reciprocal service which would attach to the latter, and thus takes a certain advantage of his benefactor.  In this case it would be far more straightforward, even if it involved some humiliation, to use plain words, and to accept at once the true position of a recipient, and not affect the seeming one of a borrower.  Connected with the subject of debtor and creditor is the ungrounded notion, to which I have already adverted, that the payment of what are called debts of honour ought to take precedence of all other pecuniary obligations.  As these ‘debts of honour’ generally arise from bets or play or loans contracted with friends, the position assumed is simply that debts incurred to members of our own class or persons whom we know place us under a greater obligation than debts incurred to strangers or persons belonging to a lower grade in society.  As thus stated, the maxim is evidently preposterous and indefensible, and affords a good instance, as I have noticed in a previous chapter, of the subordination of the laws of general morality to the convenience and prejudices of particular cliques and classes.  If there is any competition at all admissible between just debts, surely those which have been incurred in return for commodities supplied have a stronger claim than those, arising from play or bets, which represent no sacrifice on the part of the creditor.

Another instance of the class of cases which I am now considering is to be found in reckless gambling.  Men who indulge in this practice are usually condemned as being simply hare-brained or foolish; but, if we look a little below the surface, we shall find that their conduct is often highly criminal.  Many a time a man risks on play or a bet or a horse-race or a transaction on the stock exchange the permanent welfare, sometimes even the very subsistence, of his wife and children or others depending on him; or, if he loses, he cuts short a career of future usefulness, or he renders himself unable to develope, or perhaps even to retain, his business or his estates, and so involves his tenants, or clerks, or workmen in his