But because through everything he
had held unflinchingly to his honesty, he had been steadily climbing the
heights. He had passed West long ago, because their faces were set in
opposite directions. West had had the finest distinctions of honor
carefully instilled into him from his birth. Queed had deduced his, raw,
from his own unswerving honesty. And the first acid test of a real
situation showed that West's honor was only burnished and decorated
dross, while Queed's, which he had made himself, was as fine gold. In
that test, all superficial trappings were burned and shriveled away; men
were made to show their men's colors; and the "queer little man with the
queer little name" had instantly cast off his resplendent superior
because contact with his superior's dishonesty was degrading to him. Yet
in the same breath, he had allowed his former chief to foist off that
dishonesty upon his own clean shoulders, and borne the detestable burden
without demand for sympathy or claim for gratitude. And this was the
measure of how, as Queed had climbed by his honesty, his whole nature
had been strengthened and refined.
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