A great many times have we, poor creatures, been severely pinched with hunger, when meat and bread have been moulding under the lock, while the key was in the pocket of our mistress.

This had been so when she _knew_ we were nearly half starved; and yet, that mistress, with saintly air, would kneel with her husband, and pray each morning that a merciful God would bless them in basket and in store, and save them, at last, in his kingdom.

But I proceed with the argument.
It was necessary that right to steal from _others_ should be established; and this could only rest upon a wider range of generalization than that which supposed the right to steal from my master.
It was sometime before I arrived at this clear right.

The reader will get some idea of my train of reasoning, by a brief statement of the case.

"I am," thought I, "not only the slave of Thomas, but I am the slave of society at large.