"No," he answered. "I'm not encouraging your rotten idea anyhow."
"Could the revenue officials feel people's bumps?" inquired Hilda
reflectively.
"I'm afraid," I said, "people wouldn't stand it. Fancy Peter----"
"I've got it," said Hilda. "The revenue officials would attribute a
virtue to the taxpayer, and if he wanted to escape taxation they would
require him to prove to them that he lacked the virtue in question."
"They would like doing that," muttered Peter.
"You have found the solution," I said to Hilda. "If you impute to a
person a virtue he does not possess he probably denies that he has it,
but he is really flattered and his denial is not sincere. He would be
willing to pay on it; he would rather pay than not."
At this point Peter grew tired of refraining from comment. "I don't
want you to suppose," he said, "that I am taking any interest in your
fatuous scheme, but doesn't it occur to you that under your system it
would be simply ruinous to have any virtues at all, and that the only
people who would flourish would be those who had no virtues and were
not ashamed of it?"
"For one thing," I replied confidently, "the taxes would be graduated
in the ordinary way in accordance with means. The slightest flicker of
a conscience in Park Lane would be more heavily mulcted than the most
blameless life in Bermondsey.
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