It is a terribly sad reflection, remarked MacShaughnassy, musingly; but what a desperately dull place this earth would be if it were not for our friends the bad people. Do you know, he continued, when I hear of folks going about the world trying to reform everybody and make them good, I get positively nervous. Once do away with sin, and literature will become a thing of the past. Without the criminal classes we authors would starve.