For him
principle did not exist, except as an eccentricity of some
strangely-constructed men which might be used to keep them down.
Life presented itself to him as a series of mathematical problems,
as an examination in mathematics. To pass it meant a diploma as a
success; to fail to pass meant the abysmal disgrace of obscurity.
Cheating was permissible, but not to get caught at it. Otherwise
Branch was the most amiable of men; and why should he not have
been, his digestion being good, his income sufficient, his
domestic relations admirable, and his reputation for ability
growing apace? No one respected him, no one liked him; but every
one admired him as an intellect moving quite unhampered of the
restraints of conscience. In person he was rather handsome, the
weasel type of his face being well concealed by fat and by
judicious arrangements of mustache and side-whiskers. By
profession he was a lawyer, and had been most successful as
adviser to wholesale thieves on depredations bent or in search of
immunity for depredations done. It was incomprehensible to him why
he was unpopular with the masses. It irritated him that they could
not appreciate his purely abstract point of view on life; it
irritated him because his unpopularity with them meant that there
were limits, and very narrow ones, to his ambition.
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