"What's the use when you know you haven't done anything wrong, Virgil?
You said yourself you were going to improve the process so much it would be different from the old one, and you'd REALLY have a right to it." Adams had persuaded himself of this when he yielded; he had found it necessary to persuade himself of it--though there was a part of him, of course, that remained unpersuaded; and this discomfiting part of him was what made his present trouble.

"Yes, I know," he said.

"That's true, but I can't quite seem to get away from the fact that the principle of the process is a good deal the same--well, it's more'n that; it's just about the same as the one he hired Campbell and me to work out for him.

Truth is, nobody could tell the difference, and I don't know as there IS any difference except in these improvements I'm making.

Of course, the improvements do give me pretty near a perfect right to it, as a person might say; and that's one of the things I thought of putting in my letter to him; but I was afraid he'd just think I was trying to make up excuses, so I left it out.