He understood, from everything he had endured in his own life, that the worth of honesty, presented as noble before schoolchildren, was itself a lie. The honest souls who paused to deliberate on morals found, when they made their choice, that the treasure was gone. What was absolutely true and right, and what was absolutely false and wrong, and how could any sane person live without crossing the borders every day? Lies were the lifeblood of the world. Lies activated the menacing truth Boomba now understood, and there was only one, which was, take what you want, or others will take it.
