I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.

I love to see Virtue rewarded,

in fiction and of course even more in real life.

And one of my favorite examples of Virtue rewarded

comes from one of my very favorite passages

from one of my very favorite novels,

The Brilliant Haunting Book,

All the Kingsman by Robert Penn Mourin.

How I love this book.

And I often think about the following passage.

It describes how the main character willy stark

when he later becomes a powerful politician,

intervenes to reward a bartender

who once stood up for him in a tough moment.

Now, I do need to explain this and set it up.

And I'm worried that reading this passage

may be like telling the joke that they then have to explain

because if you have to explain it,

it loses its funniness.

But I simply cannot resist this passage

because it is one of my favorites.

So I'm gonna explain the context for the characters

...