very much surprised to find six weeks later that nothing had been done about the matter.
"I'm afraid you did not tell me the truth," I said to Robey when he came in response to my call.
"I didn't tell you I'd paid the bill," he said in explanation, "I said I'd written the check. I just didn't send it."
"But you meant me to think you had sent it, didn't you?"
"I suppose so."
And now Robey thinks it a trifle unfair when I hesitate to take his statements of fact without pretty careful analysis.
Sometimes it is hard to tell the truth—especially when it involves some one else or reflects upon your own character or conduct. There is, in my estimation at least, a generally prevalent false sense of honor which makes it wrong to tell the truth when the facts if known would not be creditable to some one else. I have never understood why. It is certainly not so in legal proceeding or in adult life. It demands unusual courage often to tell the truth especially when the consequences might be avoided.
McDonald was waiting for me when I came into the office one morning a short time ago.
"I want to tell you something," he said. "It isn't creditable to me, and possibly you'll think when I'm through that I'm a pretty poor chap; but I want to get it off my mind. I've got to have my own self-respect if I'm to be happy."
