Kitabı oku: «Pippin; A Wandering Flame», sayfa 8
CHAPTER X
PIPPIN LOOKS FOR THE GRACE OF GOD
ALL day long the rain fell, softly, steadily, without haste and without rest; all day long the Red Ruffian cowered in his hiding hole, cold, wet, hungry and miserable. The water trickled in streams down the rock behind him and gathered in pools about his feet. The dump near by steamed, and sent off noisome fumes. Rats ran in and out of it; the Ruffian was afraid of rats.
What did the boy think of as he sat huddled under the partial shelter of the ledge, munching his sodden crackers? Did he picture to himself the glories of successful crime, the riches won by skill and daring, the revels with other chosen spirits? No! He thought of Cyrus Poor Farm. He saw the bright, cozy kitchen, the wide fireplace, the cheerful glowing of the stove. He saw the table spread with its homely, hearty fare: baked beans, done to a turn, with that dusky-gold crisp on the pork that none save Aunt Bailey could give; the potatoes roasted in their jackets; the brown bread – at thought of the brown bread the Ruffian groaned aloud and passed the back of his hand across his eyes.
The long day wore on. The slow hours chimed from the church beyond the hill. His one comfort was the thought of the cigar inside his shirt, dry and safe in its oiled paper. The matches were safe, too, in a tin box. He would wait till along towards dark, and then smoke. It would chirk him up good, and when Moonlighter came to fetch him, he'd find him as gay – as gay – a strong shiver seized him, and his teeth chattered. Wasn't it about time? It was growing dusk. At last, with wet, trembling fingers, he drew out his prize. Sheltering it with his body from the pitiless rain, he struck a match and applied it to the cigar. The tiny flame spurted, clung, shrank to a spark, spurted again – the cigar was alight.
It was near midnight. The rain had ceased, and a dense white mist was rising from the drenched earth. A breeze came sighing through the branches of the trees, rustling the grasses round the hiding hole; it was answered by a low moan from the sodden figure that lay stretched in the hollow under the rock. It was his last moan, Myron thought. Death was coming; this white mist was his shroud. They would find him here – or maybe they would not. Maybe his bones would whiten in this dismal spot, and years after, the traveler – Hark! what was that? A sound, that was not wind or trees or grasses: a long, low, wailing cry.
The wretched boy struggled up on one elbow and peered through the thick white curtain, then, with a smothered shriek, he scrambled to his hands and knees. Something was there! Something whiter than the mist; something that moved —
"Help!" cried the Red Ruffian. "Murder! Help!"
"Hush!" said Pippin. "Hold your darned noise! Steel is sharp!"
"Oh! oh, dear! oh —blood is red! Is it you, Moonlighter? Why are you – why are you all in white?"
"Make folks think I was the ha'nt, bonehead! What'd you s'pose? Cute trick, I thought!"
Pippin stepped down into the hollow and threw off the sheet that covered him.
"Well, how are you, young feller?" he asked cheerfully.
"I'm dyin'!" said the boy feebly. "Tell the folks I – "
"Oh, shucks! Here, set up – so! It's stopped rainin'. My! you are wet, ain't you? Feelin' sick? I expect that cigar was a mite —here! lean up against the ledge here, and take a drink!"
Reader, have you ever tasted spice-draught? Its basic principle is peppermint. To this is added cinnamon, cloves, cassia, and a liberal dash of cayenne pepper. "Temp'rance toddy," I have heard it called, but there is nothing temperate about it. "S'archin'" is the adjective Pippin used.
"Take a good swig!" he urged, putting the bottle to the boy's lips. "It's hot stuff, I tell ye!"
The boy drank; next moment he was on his feet, coughing, dancing round, and holding his throat. A howl of anguish broke from him, but Pippin checked it with a hand over his mouth.
"Easy, boy, easy! 'Twill het you up good; nothin' like it, Mis' – that is, they claim. Don't you feel it livenin' of you up? That's hearty! Now you'll find your legs. Lean against me if you're wobbly still. Time we was on our job! Foller, Red Ruffi'n!"
As they went along, Pippin explained the nature of the job. A soft snap, just the thing for a green hand. Nice, quiet folks, sound sleepers, old-fashioned lock – pick it with one hand while you eat your dinner with the other. Honest, if he didn't feel that Red Ruffi'n needed a soft snap, he wouldn't hardly have had the heart to ease them, they was such nice folks. Been real good to him, too, and would be to any one come nigh 'em, but Red Ruffi'n was his pal, and pals were bound to see each other through.
"S'pose – s'pose we was pinched!" said Red Ruffi'n, stumbling along over the plashy ground. "What would – "
"Shoreham!" Pippin gave a lively sketch of the place; the Red Ruffian shuddered and coughed.
"Moonlighter," he said, after a pause; "I hadn't ought to get you into this. I – I ain't feelin' well, either; s'pose we – what say?"
Pippin took his arm with a grip as firm as it was quiet.
"Testin' me, are ye?" he laughed. "Tryin' to see if I'd crawl – what? There's no crawl in me, not an inch! Just wait till we get in where it's warm and dry, and you'll see things different: not but I know you was only foolin'. Crawl now, when everything's all ready? Gee! I would be a softy, wouldn't I? Here's the gully! Now you go first and I'll foller and keep watch behind; stop when you hear me peep like a chicken!"
With faltering steps the unhappy Ruffian crept along the gully, keeping well in the shadow, starting at every stray cat, every scrap of wind-whisked paper. Pippin, stepping lightly and softly a few yards behind, whistled noiselessly, and pursued an imaginary conversation with Mrs. Baxter.
"Just you trust me, Mis' Baxter, and you'll see. Why, you don't think I'd take all this trouble, and give all this trouble, if I weren't certain sure that I was right? 'He leadeth me,' you know, ma'am, and the Lord is sure leadin' me this time. There's no harm will come of it, but only good, if I'm not a bonehead from Bonetown. Now see – "
He peeped low, like a day-old chicken; the slinking figure in advance stopped.
It was, as Pippin had said, an easy lock to pick. A stout hairpin of Mrs. Baxter's did the trick; a nice tool, Pippin pronounced it gravely. The door swung open, revealing blackness. The Red Ruffian, shrinking back, found himself gently but firmly propelled forward; he stumbled over the threshold and the door closed noiselessly behind him. "This way!" Pippin guided him through a passage, over another threshold. "Here we be!" Closing another door, Pippin produced a match, lighted a bit of candle. "The bakery!" he whispered. "The money is in here! Hush! Take your shoes off; one of 'em squeaks."
The flickering light shone on the white tiles, the glittering enamel, the black doors of the ovens; the further corners of the room were in deep shadow.
"Did it squeak loud? Do you think – do you think any one heard? Hark! What was that?"
"Nothin'! Mouse, mebbe! Now look! The cash is in that box, see? Under the table there; make it out? Now, Red Ruffi'n, this is your job, and you are goin' to have the credit of it. I'll hold the light; you reach down and get the box – "
Mr. Baxter had felt all along that when the time came, he would know what to do. A calm man, he had followed Pippin's instructions implicitly, had now stood patiently for an hour in his dark corner, leaning on his "peel," the long broad-bladed, paddle-like implement which bore the loaves to and from the oven. Mrs. Baxter, in the shop, might palpitate and wring her hands and moan, only restrained by thoughts of Buster slumbering above; Mr. Baxter awaited his moment, and it came.
By the flickering candlelight, he saw a cringing, trembling figure creep forward, and bend over, displaying to his view a broad expanse of trouser. To the father of Buster, that expanse suggested but one thing in the world. Raising the peel, he brought it down with a resounding thwack which sent the boy flat on his face under the table and brought Mrs. Baxter shrieking from the shop.
"Elegant!" said Pippin. "Mr. Baxter, sir, that was simply elegant!"
An hour later the Red Ruffian, full, dry, and warm, a plaster over his injured nose, lay in Pippin's bed; and Pippin ("as per contract with the Elder," he told himself, "lettin' alone its bein' right and fittin' so to do") sat on the edge of the bed and looked for the grace of God.
He began by explaining his plot in full: how he had been at the Poor Farm, heard Mr. Bailey's story, and promised to find the boy if he could; how the Lord had come into it and played right into his hand; how the excellent baker and his wife had agreed to help; how everything had went smooth as greased lightnin' – he never see anything work out neater and prettier.
"Here! Take another drink of the lemonade! 'Tis some different from spice-draught. Gee, wasn't that something fierce! I expect it kep' you from pneumony, though!"
Pippin held the lemonade to the boy's lips, and patted the pillows tenderly, as a woman might. Meeting his eyes, dark with shame, misery, and reproach, he beamed on him benevolently.
"There!" he said. "I know how you feel. Look at it one way, 'twas a mean trick I played you, a mean, low-down trick. I ask your pardon for that! But look at here! I had to stop you, hadn't I? I'd passed my word, and, too, the Lord bid me. No gettin' away from that. Well, now, if I'd sat down there in the wood road that day, talked to you real fatherly and pious, told you thus and so, and asked wouldn't you be a good boy and go back to the farm and hoe potatoes – " The boy made a restless motion. Pippin laid a quiet hand on his arm. "Rest easy! I'll come to that presently! If I'd have done that, would you have listened to me? Not you! You'd ha' laughed at me for a gospel shark, and you'd have up and gone after that mean skunk (you notice he never turned round to look what become of you?) fast as you could pick up your heels. Then what? Say you'd caught up with him and gone on to the next town, and started in breakin' and enterin'! Well, what say? Why, then you'd ben pinched and run in. Yes siree Bob! You never was built for a crook, my lad; you're too slow, and you're too – call it clumpsy. You've no quicksilver in your toes, nor yet in your fingers. You'd ben run in, and then you'd gone to Shoreham. First offense, they might let you off with six months – more likely a year, but say six months! For six months, then, you'd worked as you never worked before in your little life, alongside of men – well – the Lord made 'em, amen! – only they ain't the kind you're used to. What I would say, there's no romance about Shoreham, not a mite, and don't you forget it! (Say, ain't this a dandy bed? I betcher! And all ready for the man that comes after me. We'll come to that bumby, too.) And if you try to hook it, or misbehave anyways, you get put in solitary. Know what that means? It means four walls with nothin' on 'em except the bricks, walls four feet apart one way and seven the other, and a grated door between you and anything else. It means twenty-four hours every day and each of 'em half of the whole, seems though! No! You can't understand, 'cause you haven't ben there. It means no word spoke or heard excep' when your victuals is passed in, and mighty few then, and what there is is no special pleasure to hear. Now, bo, that is what I've ben through, and that is what I've saved you from. Now what about it? Did I do right, or did I do wrong?"
"Right!" faltered the boy. "Oh, Moonlighter – "
"Hold on! Forget that! My name's Pippin, and that's what you call me from now on. I had to show you what I used to be, or you'd never have listened to me; now, I'm an honest man, and there's nobody I can't look in the face. Pippin's my name, and straight is my natur'. Praise the Lord! Amen! Well, sir, that is what I done. Now the question is, what next? And here comes in Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. Well, those folks are as good as they make 'em; they're as good as your Uncle and Aunt Bailey, and more is not to be said. They know all about me, and all about you. I'm leavin' 'em in a day or two, for good; and gorry, what do you think them two Bakin' Angels is ready to do? They stand ready to take you and make a baker of you. Now – rest easy! I got to get it all off my chest! Bakin' is as nice a trade, as pretty an all-round trade, as a man can ask for in this world. If I hadn't other things I'd undertaken to do – well, never mind that! Here you can stay, if you're a mind to, and if you feel like you've had your bellyful of breakin' and enterin', and like that; work in daylight and sunlight and free air, and eat choice food, and hear kind, decent, pleasant language and never anything else. That's what you've ben used to all your life, you'll say; yes, but there's more to it. Here you are in a town, and folks all round you, boys of your own age, nice clean fellers like you – you needn't winch! The dirt ain't grimed into you yet; 'twill wash off, you see! – boys to chin with, and play baseball with, and football; girls too, nice, pretty, refined young ladies, comin' in to buy creamcakes, and – green grass! I certingly shall miss those young ladies! – and – go to singin' school evenin's, and church meetin', and like that, and – well, that, sir, is what we offer, against the life of a crook. You balance them two in your mind, and think it over a bit!"
He made a motion with his hand, and turning his face away, was about to take counsel with himself, when the boy spoke hastily.
"Mr. Pippin," he said, "I – no need to think it over! I thank you a thousand times. I'm a fool, but I didn't know it before. Now I see it clear, and I thank you – I – I can't say what I feel, but I do sure feel it. I'd stay here glad and thankful, and I'd do my best, sir, honestly I would, and try to make good; but – but – "
"Well?" Pippin's eyes were very bright, he bent forward eagerly. "Well, youngster? What stands in the way?"
"Aunt and Uncle!" broke forth the boy. "I've been mean – mean as dirt, and they so good to me. If they'll let me, and if Mr. Baxter can wait, say a week, I'll come back more thankful than I've words to say; but first I must go home – and – "
A thwack upon his shoulders, almost as loud as that of the peel an hour before, sent him half out of bed. Looking up in terror, he saw Pippin standing over him with shining eyes and outstretched hand.
"Shake!" he said simply. "I've found what I was lookin' for. Let us praise the Lord!"
CHAPTER XI
THE CHAPLAIN READS HIS MAIL
THE chaplain was sorting his morning mail. He did it deftly and quickly, opening (with a thin-bladed paper knife; no ripping or tearing with hasty fingers), glancing over, destroying, filing, or laying in the "Answer immediately" pile. All this with his swift, careful fingers and half of his careful mind; the other half was busy over problems. Problems of Tom, of Dick, of Harry; problems mental, moral, physical. If he could only keep them apart, how much simpler it would be! But the three would run together, act and react one upon the other. One of his trusties was "wobbling," the guard told him; growing surly, careless, shirking his work here and there, getting up steam, Wilson the guard opined; liable to turn ugly any minute. What had happened? Well, he thought his egg had been smaller than the rest, last egg day; he'd been chewing the rag ever since. The chaplain sighed. What children they were!
He ran his eyes over a letter. It was from a prisoner's wife, begging to know how Nate was. She had been sick; would chaplain please tell Nate that was why she couldn't come last Tuesday? (Tuesday was visitors' day.) The children was smart. Joe and Susy was at school, but Benny had no shoes till she got her pay from the factory; she was working extra time to try and have something left over from the rent. They would get along all right till he, Nate, was out, and he could get a place right off in the mill, she guessed.
The chaplain sighed again, and laid the note on the growing pile of "Answer immediately." Poor Susan! She worked so hard, and was so hopeful! She always thought the last spree would remain the last; better so! He shook his head, seeing Nate's weak, comely face, sodden with drink. Poor Susan! Poor women! God help them all!
He opened another letter, and learned that "yrs. respect'ly, Wm. Billiam," hadn't got no work yet; no wun appeared to want him though he show them the note, sir and sum sed when they was a plaice he shood have it and a Nother man sed there wos not work enuf for strate men and he gessed crooks wood haf to wate till the pigs begin to fly "but I ramember wot you sed chapple In and i will keep strate sir you betcher life excusin bad writin'." This letter, written all downhill with no sign of punctuation, smudged and smeared by a not too clean shirtsleeve, might have brought a smile to some faces, but the chaplain's face was grave enough. The endless problem, the riddle without an answer. Not work enough for the honest men; yet if the discharged criminal cannot get work, how to prevent him from relapsing into crime? Who can blame him? He goes out with his little newborn resolve, a feeble, tottering thing, and tries for honest work. He has learned a trade behind the bars, perhaps; he can make brooms and mats, weave rough baskets, cobble shoes. He finds a dozen applicants before him. Questions are asked: Where has he worked? What references can he give? If he tells the truth, seven employers out of ten shake their heads. If he lies, he is found out after a time and the result is the same; he is "bounced." Who can blame the boss? Who can blame the man if – Round and round, over and over! No royal road anywhere. Nothing to do but keep on trying.
The chaplain raised his head, and the fighting look came into his eyes. Keep on! Never say die! The scroll – his eyes fell on the letter with its forlorn smudges; that one looked as if a tear had fallen and been wiped off with a grimy hand – the scroll was growing clearer; slowly, yes, but steadily. You had only to look back twenty years, ten years, five! Line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little and there a little —
"Aha!" The word was spoken aloud, in a tone of pleased surprise. "Pippin, I verily believe!" said the chaplain. He studied the superscription a moment. How he had labored over those upstrokes! It was a good hand now, though the scamp would never be a professor of calligraphy. Then he opened the envelope and read as follows:
Dear Friend Elder Hadley Respected Sir,
This is to state that I am first rate and hoping the same in regard to yourself and all friends there. Well Elder I am having a bully time right straight along. I am still to Kingdom in the bakery and grindin same as I last wrote but dont think I shall stop much longer, though I like first-rate and if I felt the Lord intended bakin for mine there's no dandier place, no sir nor one where I'd feel more at home. If they was my own folks they couldn't be kinder to me than what Mr. and Mrs. Baxter is. But I have fixed them all right with a nice boy will step right along and make an A 1 baker if he has his health which appears rugged up to the present and he likes real well and so do they.
Well Elder you said to tell you when I found a Leadin; well sir I have, and it seems to squint like the Lord was showin me His hand. I found a dandy place sir, the dandyest you ever see and folks ekally so, and plenty of room; and savin this boy like, or the Lord savin him through me is what I would say, made me feel Elder I wanted to do sompin for the boys. Yes sir when I see that dandy place and only a few old folks that pooty soon their time would be up I thought fill that nice big house up with boys and learn em farmin and gardenin and like that, why twould be great elder. Take kids like I was with no folks of their own or bum ones which is worse; what I mean take em away from the city and give em hens to take care of and feed the pigs and learn ploughin and sowin and like that and live out doors with a good house to come in nights and good food and some person that knows boys and feels for em and knows what some of em has ben through, I think it would be great sir dont you. I tell you Elder there's guys in there, and lifers some of 'em, if they'd ben handled different when they was kids they'd stayed different yes sir they would and you said the same often. Now what I mean is when I've got this present job done and found that kid Im going to follow this lead, because I feel Elder the Lord is leadin me yes sir He sure is. I opened the lids of the Testament you give me and looked and first thing I see was "This should ye have done and not to leave the other undone." Now wouldn't that give you a pain and so it did me and I said lo here was I like Samuel and I am Elder so help me. Mr. Bailey would like it firstrate but he thinks twould take time I tell him I want to start right in soon as I have this job done. I am leavin tomorrow so no more from yours in the Lord and thanking you kindly Elder I am sure for all you done.
Yours resp'y.Pippin.
The chaplain read this effusion through twice, a thoughtful frown knitting his brow, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.
He tilted his chair back against the wall, and looked out of the window. Pippin had been much in his mind since their parting two months before. This was the second letter he had received from him. The first had been written within a week of Pippin's leaving Shoreham, and told of his finding Nipper Crewe dying by the roadside, and of the wheel that he considered rightly his. That was a singular meeting, the chaplain thought. The old sinner, full of evil deeds and memories, suspected of many crimes large and small, yet so crafty withal and so passionately bent on keeping out of prison that for the most part he had succeeded. The chaplain shook his head, recalling one inmate and another, who, shaking an impotent fist, choking with rage, had told how after the "deal" for which he was "pinched," Nipper, the instigator of it, had slipped quietly off under the very noses of the police. While his mate and dupe was there, raging and choking, Nipper would be roaming the country at large with his wheel, grinding more or less, observing a great deal, planning the next neat little job. Yes, Nipper was a bad one! And strange to think of Pippin's being chosen to comfort the old sinner in his last hour and inherit the wheel that had been an innocent particeps criminis in so many "deals"! Well, Pippin could comfort him if anyone could, thought the chaplain.
Still looking out of the window, he let his thoughts run back to the day – could it be two years ago? It seemed hardly more than as many months – when he first saw Pippin. His first Sunday as prison chaplain! He had accepted the call because it seemed right; a new hand seemed needed – his thoughts ran off the track, as other visions came crowding in; he brought them back with an effort.
He felt anew, with almost the same shock of strangeness, the first impression of seeing his new flock in chapel that day. The rows on rows of faces, sharp or lowering, weak or silly or vacant, degenerate or sodden, a few that were actually vicious – they were seldom really vicious, his poor boys. Suddenly a head lifted, and he saw the face as of a strayed seraph; then presently heard the voice, as of the same seraph at home, singing. The chaplain broke into a little laugh.
Let the bright seraphim in burning row —
That line came insistently to his mind whenever he heard Pippin sing; yet he knew perfectly well that Milton's seraphim were not singing, but blowing their loud uplifted angel trumpets. Perhaps – perhaps voices and trumpets were more alike there? – Anyhow, Pippin's voice had a trumpet note in certain hymns that he specially loved.
The process of Pippin's conversion – to call it that; the chaplain sought for a better word, rejecting in turn a dozen or more – had been the happiest episode of the two years. Plenty of good and cheerful and hopeful things, but that – what had it been like? Chipping off the baked ashes – in Herculaneum, say – and coming upon the lucid marble of some perfect statue? No! A statue was after all a statue, and could give back no warmth. Mining, then, in dark and cold and foul air – poor boys! there was so much good in the worst of them, though! – and finding a vein of virgin gold – No! Gold was nothing but gold, after all. What – Ah! Here it was! Fumbling with the keys of an organ in the dark, feeling about, waking here a mutter, there a discord, there again a shriek – till suddenly one struck the true chord and the music broke out like sunlight – Or wasn't it after all just that, just sunlight, breaking from a cloud —
"Come in!" the chair was brought hastily to its normal position. A guard touched his cap in the doorway. "Beg pardon, sir, but French Bill has broke loose. Keeper said you was to be told – "
The chaplain was on his feet in an instant. "What has happened? Tell me as we go along!"
"Fell foul of Tom Packard with his bucket, and mauled him consid'able. I've been lookin' for it these two days. Tom was waitin' at his table, and Bill thought he give him a small egg o' purpose."
"Dear me, sirs! Who is with him now?"
The guard chuckled. "There's no one with him! Anybody wouldn't be very comf'table there just now. Jones is handy by, lookin' after him. You can hear him now!"
They could. A muffled roar, rising now and then into a bellow. As they drew nearer, the roar became articulate, and resolved itself into a sustained and passionate request for the blood, liver, and other vital adjuncts of Thomas Packard. "Lemmegetaholdofhim – lemmegetaholdofhim!" Coming down B corridor the clamor was deafening, echoed back from side to side of the narrow passage; accompanied moreover by banging of fists, kicking of feet against iron bars. The chaplain sighed and longed for Pippin. Nobody could manage Bill like Pippin. He usually knocked him down and sat on his chest singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" till the fit was over. There wasn't a mite of harm in Bill, Pippin always maintained, only he was nervous, and come to get worked up, he b'iled right over.
The other inmates of B corridor were listening to the uproar, some laughing, others sympathizing with Bill or Tom, as the case might be. Opposite the grated door of the cell a turnkey leaned against the wall, a stolid, unmoved figure. "Here comes chaplain!" the murmur ran from cell to cell; and every face was pressed eagerly against the grating. "Here's chaplain! Chaplain'll sort him!"
Bill himself seemed wholly unconscious of Mr. Hadley's approach. He was a French Canadian, a slender, active fellow. In repose, his face was gentle and rather pensive; now it was the face of a mad wildcat. Shaking the bars with all his strength, he continued to pour out in a monotonous roar his request for the vital organs, amply detailed and characterized, of "Tompackard!"
The chaplain surveyed him quietly for a few minutes in silence; then drew a small square phial from his pocket, and unscrewing the metal top, held it between the bars to the man's nose. With a howl of twenty-wildcat power the fellow let go the bars and staggered backward. Instantly Hadley unlocked the door and stepped inside, closing it quickly after him.
"Now then, Bill," he said quietly, "what's all this row?"
Shaking and glaring, the man cowered in the farthest corner, rubbing his nose, clutching his throat.
"W'at you kill me for?" he muttered hoarsely. "W'at you kill me for, mon père? I do you no harm!"
"I haven't killed you. Sit down, Bill. You've been making a horrid row, do you know it? And you've kicked the toe right out of your boot. Now look at that! Those boots were new last month. You'll have to put a new toe cap over that, or the Warden will have you up for untidiness." He bent to examine the toe. "That's too bad! those new boots!"
"I mend heem!" Bill bent eagerly beside him. "I mend heem good, mon père! Warden nevaire see; I mak heem better as new."
"Well, see you do! And while you're about it, I wish you would look over my shoes, the pair you resoled for me, and see if you can't take the squeak out of them. It doesn't do for the chaplain to go round with squeaking boots, you know; he might disturb quiet fellows like you. By the way, what was your row about, Bill? I heard you had been pitching into Tom Packard."
They had sat down on the bed, the better to examine the injured toe cap. Bill looked up with a shrug, half ashamed, half sulky, wholly Gallic. "He been treatin' me mean, long time, two t'ree days. He geeve me de smalles' egg he can find for my breakfast; leetle, leetle, like pigeon's egg."
"Well, I got a bad egg the other day; halfway to a chicken it was; but I didn't break the cook's head, as I understand you broke poor Tom's."
"Yes! yes! I break hees head; I kill heem if I could. Yes, sir!"
"And now you're ashamed, eh? You know you are, Bill, you may as well own up." After some argument, Bill owned that he was ashamed and promised amendment. "Then that's all right!" The chaplain rose with an air of relief. "I'll speak a word to Father O'Neill, and he'll give you a nice little penance, and you'll make it up with Tom. I'm going to see him now, and I shall tell him you are sorry – yes, I shall, because you are, you know, sorry and ashamed. But remember!" He drew out the square green phial and held it up. "The next time you'll get it stronger!"
The man recoiled in terror, clasping his hands over his nose. "Non! non, mon père! Not kill me again! W'at ees eet? W'at you call eet?"
"Aromatic spirits of ammonia." The chaplain eyed the bottle gravely, shook his head, and put it back into his pocket. "No joke, is it, Bill! Well, good-by, old sport. Remember!"
