{"id":"01KG8AKDA4R9894APG4TPXTGNM","cid":"bafkreib4lhme6tsltkuhwy4xua5yi425pg6jo7rnzmfarwhhf5j5ilor34","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5471,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":5408,"text":"'the child is father of the man;' hence, as all boys are rascals, so are\r\nall men. But, God bless me, you must know these things better than I;\r\nkeeping an intelligence office as you do; a business which must furnish\r\npeculiar facilities for studying mankind. Come, come up here, sir;\r\nconfess you know these things pretty well, after all. Do you not know\r\nthat all men are rascals, and all boys, too?\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir,\" replied the other, spite of his shocked feelings seeming to pluck\r\nup some spirit, but not to an indiscreet degree, \"Sir, heaven be\r\npraised, I am far, very far from knowing what you say. True,\" he\r\nthoughtfully continued, \"with my associates, I keep an intelligence\r\noffice, and for ten years, come October, have, one way or other, been\r\nconcerned in that line; for no small period in the great city of\r\nCincinnati, too; and though, as you hint, within that long interval, I\r\nmust have had more or less favorable opportunity for studying\r\nmankind--in a business way, scanning not only the faces, but ransacking\r\nthe lives of several thousands of human beings, male and female, of\r\nvarious nations, both employers and employed, genteel and ungenteel,\r\neducated and uneducated; yet--of course, I candidly admit, with some\r\nrandom exceptions, I have, so far as my small observation goes, found\r\nthat mankind thus domestically viewed, confidentially viewed, I may say;\r\nthey, upon the whole--making some reasonable allowances for human\r\nimperfection--present as pure a moral spectacle as the purest angel\r\ncould wish. I say it, respected sir, with confidence.\"\r\n\r\n\"Gammon! You don't mean what you say. Else you are like a landsman at\r\nsea: don't know the ropes, the very things everlastingly pulled before\r\nyour eyes. Serpent-like, they glide about, traveling blocks too subtle\r\nfor you. In short, the entire ship is a riddle. Why, you green ones\r\nwouldn't know if she were unseaworthy; but still, with thumbs stuck back\r\ninto your arm-holes, pace the rotten planks, singing, like a fool, words\r\nput into your green mouth by the cunning owner, the man who, heavily\r\ninsuring it, sends his ship to be wrecked--\r\n\r\n    'A wet sheet and a flowing sea!'--\r\n\r\nand, sir, now that it occurs to me, your talk, the whole of it, is\r\nbut a wet sheet and a flowing sea, and an idle wind that follows fast,\r\noffering a striking contrast to my own discourse.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir,\" exclaimed the man with the brass-plate, his patience now more or\r\nless tasked, \"permit me with deference to hint that some of your remarks\r\nare injudiciously worded. And thus we say to our patrons, when they\r\nenter our office full of abuse of us because of some worthy boy we may\r\nhave sent them--some boy wholly misjudged for the time. Yes, sir, permit\r\nme to remark that you do not sufficiently consider that, though a small\r\nman, I may have my small share of feelings.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, well, I didn't mean to wound your feelings at all. And that they\r\nare small, very small, I take your word for it. Sorry, sorry. But truth\r\nis like a thrashing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of the\r\nway. Hope you understand me. Don't want to hurt you. All I say is, what\r\nI said in the first place, only now I swear it, that all boys are\r\nrascals.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir,\" lowly replied the other, still forbearing like an old lawyer\r\nbadgered in court, or else like a good-hearted simpleton, the butt of\r\nmischievous wags, \"Sir, since you come back to the point, will you allow\r\nme, in my small, quiet way, to submit to you certain small, quiet views\r\nof the subject in hand?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes!\" with insulting indifference, rubbing his chin and looking the\r\nother way. \"Oh, yes; go on.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM4RS4GSX8JEXTB47AGF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKYNCB9B6JGKP9S11A8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKD9Y80EZH2ARWCJETSC5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:03.396Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.142Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}