"But you're too proud to save it," continued the other in a voice like battalions on the march. He laid a frank and friendly hand on Ernie's shoulder. "Come and confess your Redeemer, my lad!" he called. "Come to the foot of the Cross! Throw the burden of your sins on Him! He'll carry em—next Sunday—two o'clock—second dining-room—sharp."
Ernie never went.
It was not that he wished to stand or fall by a principle: Ernie had no hankerings for a martyr's crown. It may have been that he inherited from his father a fine reserve in matters spiritual and that somewhere in the deeps of him there was an invincible repugnance to the methods of the seducer, or merely that he was one of the simple of earth—far too honest to see the path of expediency and follow it.
The other men saw and winked. They did not admire Ernie for refusing to bow the knee, nor was there anything to admire.
"Bloody mug," was all their comment.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE THIRD FLOOR
But if Ernie was simple, he was not blind. When he was not on the lift, he acted as Boots for the Third Floor; and no man could work there without seeing what he saw.
Mr. Pigott, once meeting his old pupil in Church Street, asked him how he liked his job.
"Not so bad, sir," Ernie answered without enthusiasm. "Some I likes; and some I dislikes; and most I don't mind."